I should like to give a warm welcome to Dr Dennis Ougrin who has been appointed to be Editor-in-Chief of our journal, Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH), following the completion of the term of office by the previous editor, Professor Jane Barlow. First, let me thank Jane for her sterling work in leading the journal which goes from strength to strength and wish her well in her future enterprises.
Dennis brings many excellent attributes to the task. He is a jobbing child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital who has a special interest in a number of areas, three come to mind: firstly reducing deliberate self-harm by young people; secondly leading a team that has supported discharge service thus reducing the amount of time young people have to spend on adolescent units and returning them to their communities sooner, enabling them to resume more normal functioning; and thirdly leading the southern England branch of a randomised controlled trial of the New Orleans model of early intervention with both foster carers and birthparents to improve their moment to moment interactions with young children with a view to increasing attachment security.
Dennis also leads the MSc course on Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. This is a major undertaking promoting skills in the field to an international range of students. He is particularly keen on innovative methods including using e-learning, simulation techniques and branching scenarios to make skills development as real as possible. This experience will help Dennis lead Child and Adolescent Mental Health to be a publication that promotes members skills by linking to a variety of technologies, not just reading the printed word.
Dr Dennis Ougrin said of his appointment; “In its brief history, CAMH has already made a substantial contribution to the field of Child and Adolescent Mental Health. It has become a repository of clinically relevant research and a service innovation hub. As the new editor-in-chief, I will work with the vision of creating a better mental health for young people around the world, using CAMH as a vehicle to tackle our most important tasks: advancing education, improving quality of care and innovating in healthcare policy.
These are exciting times. Although child and adolescent services continue to face severely limited resources and research in our field remains greatly under-funded, child and youth mental health has become the centre of unprecedented attention. There is a realisation of the extent of child and adolescent problems in the community, but also of the potential to transform the lives of young people with the right approach. There is an opportunity for CAMH to become the preeminent source of clinical knowledge, a generator of policy ideas and a pioneer of healthcare delivery models for all those concerned with the mental health of children and young people.
I would like to extend a warm invitation to all healthcare professionals, policymakers, global health and government bodies to join our editorial team in a collaborative effort to achieve the ultimate goal of a better mental health for our children and young people.”
