The Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH) has launched ACAMH Learn acamhlearn.org, a new, free online learning platform offering video and podcast content from more than 200 world-leading mental health experts.
ACAMH has over 60 years of experience in raising standards in its field and publishes three journals (the Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry (JCPP), the Child & Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) journal, and JCPP Advances).
Many working in this area are struggling to find the time or budget to take part in Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities, and ACAMH Learn seeks to overcome these barriers. It also acts as a high-quality, trustworthy source of information in a world where misinformation and myths can spread quickly online.
The platform supports the CPD of mental health practitioners and clinicians, academics and researchers, teachers and social workers – as well as being a reliable resource for parents or carers concerned about the mental health of their children.
It includes a range of ACAMH-accredited CPD content – from two-minute myth-busting videos through to in-depth expert lectures – suitable for a variety of professionals, from those getting to grips with a new topic to those needing the latest best practice. Content on the platform covers a range of issues including autism, ADHD, eating disorders, anxiety, suicide, self-harm and more.
The site will be updated with new content on a weekly basis, including transcripts of all content and offers free CPD certificates to users. Users can access CPD content anytime, anywhere, on any device, meaning that they can fit their learning around other commitments, and users can create a personalised library allowing them to pick up where they left off and continue their learning.
Dr. Mark Lovell, Deputy Chair of ACAMH and a Consultant Psychiatrist working in the NHS, says: “We’re delighted to launch ACAMH Learn, which provides valuable resources to a wide range of different audiences working with, and caring for, children and adolescents and young people. This will help those who are new to a topic, together with those who are more experienced, to gain expert guidance on the latest thinking on a particular issue. It will be particularly helpful for those whose training was more generalist and are now looking to focus on specialising in child and adolescent mental health.
“We know that many CAMHS professionals, and their employers, see CPD as vital and valuable, but that budgets and schedules are tight. This platform is free, and enables people to fit their learning around other commitments. We also see it as an important step in fighting back against some of the persistent myths that can circulate around various mental health issues, empowering people to improve their knowledge and practice by engaging with the best and most reliable evidence available.”
One user commented during testing of the site: “This is the kind of mental health awareness raising that is actually helpful giving those interested in child and adolescent mental health the opportunity to discuss what they’re seeing with experts who have extensive academic and clinical knowledge.”