Mental health
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4STMF (Four Steps To My Future): acceptability, feasibility and exploratory outcomes of a universal school-based mental health and well-being programme, delivered to young adolescents in South Africa
Open Access paper from the CAMH journal – ‘Mental health disorders affect many children in South Africa, where vulnerability is high, and treatment is limited. We sought to determine the feasibility and acceptability of a universally delivered classroom-based programme for the promotion of mental health in young adolescents.’ Bronwynè Coetzee (pic) et al.
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Can we diagnose mental disorders in children? A large-scale assessment of machine learning on structural neuroimaging of 6916 children in the adolescent brain cognitive development study
Open Access paper from JCPP Advances – ‘Prediction of mental disorders based on neuroimaging is an emerging area of research with promising first results in adults. However, research on the unique demographic of children is underrepresented and it is doubtful whether findings obtained on adults can be transferred to children’. Richard Gaus (pic), Sebastian Pölsterl et al.
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Dr. Gordon Bates
Dr. Gordon Bates is a consultant child psychiatrist interested in the interaction between culture, young people and mental illness. He works for the NHS in the West Midlands and has recently completed his PhD in medical humanities. He is an Associate Editor of CAMH, responsible for the Narrative Matters section.
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Being and Becoming Mentally Healthy: A framework for understanding the mental health of babies and young children
Although there is increasing interest and investment in infant mental health, the term itself is not well understood. To support professionals to work together to protect and promote babies’ and young children’s mental health, we have worked with UNICEF-UK to create a new framework describing what it means to be mentally healthy in this life stage. The framework has two parts, “Being” and “Becoming” capturing both babies’ and young children’s current mental health as well as the capacities they are developing that will enable them to be mentally healthy in the future.
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Developing schools to enhance young people’s mental health
Research has shown that many risk factors influence young people’s mental health needs, one of which is school expectations. The youth mental health crisis continues, with one in six young people (aged 6-16) having a probable mental health problem. My research aimed to determine what young people thought of their mental health strategy. However, the way in which the research process developed suggests schools have much more to offer than just specific mental health support.
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Investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on older adolescents’ psychological wellbeing and self-identified cognitive difficulties
Open Access paper from JCPP Advances – ‘The COVID-19 pandemic coincides with growing concern regarding the mental health of young people. […] At three timepoints, independent samples of young people aged 16–18 years completed an online survey. Data collection coincided with periods of lockdown and young people returning to school. The survey assessed subjective impacts of the pandemic on overall wellbeing, anxiety and cognitive function.’ Meg Attwood (pic) et al.
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Socioeconomic disadvantage and high-effort coping in childhood: evidence of skin-deep resilience
Paper from the JCPP – ‘The current study hypothesized that skin-deep resilience – a pattern wherein socioeconomic disadvantage is linked to better mental health but worse physical health for individuals with John Henryism high-effort coping – is already present in childhood.’ Katherine B. Ehrlich (pic) et al.
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Editorial Perspective: When is a ‘small effect’ actually large and impactful?
Open Access paper from the JCPP – ‘In this short review, we utilise simulations to demonstrate that a relatively small shift in mean scores on mental health measures can indicate a large shift in the number of cases of anxiety and depression when scaled up to an entire population. This shows that ‘small’ effect sizes can in some contexts be large and impactful.’ Emma Grace Carey et al.
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Review: Improving access to mental health interventions for children from birth to five years: A Scoping Review
Paper from our CAMH journal – ‘Mental health services specifically designed for children 0–5 years are vital; however, little is known about how these services ensure access for infants at risk of mental health difficulties and their families. This scoping review seeks to address this knowledge gap’. Lyndal Hickey (pic) et al.
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Editorial Perspective: Missing the context: The challenge of social inequalities to school-based mental health interventions
Open Access paper from JCPP Advances – ‘We describe how social inequalities present a challenge to designing school-based interventions for prevention and promotion for mental health and wellbeing, and suggest priorities to aid and evaluate their effectiveness’. Karen L. Mansfield (pic) et al.
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