Evolutionary psychiatry examines mental health through the lens of evolutionary biology, focusing on ultimate causes like gene-environment interactions and evolutionary mismatches rather than just proximate mechanisms. This approach highlights how traits once adaptive in ancestral environments may now contribute to mental health vulnerabilities. This is sure to be a truly fascinating and valuable session.

By embedding this perspective into education, the webinar aims to enhance understanding of psychiatric conditions, foster interdisciplinary research, and refine clinical practices. Such initiatives align with efforts to broaden psychiatry’s conceptual framework and improve mental health care.

Speakers include; Carl Longmore, Course Leader BA Hons Primary Education at University of Wolverhampton, Professor Christopher Robertson, Independent Academic & Author, Policy Analyst & Advisor, Andy Couldrick, Chair of Birmingham Children’s Trust and DfE Advisor, Dr. Annie Swanepoel, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Dr. Arif Khan, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist.

Booking

Sign up at this link or on the Book Now button at the top of the screen, and complete the form that follows. You’ll then receive an email confirmation and a link to the webinar, plus we’ll send you a calendar reminder nearer the time. Delegates will have exclusive access to recordings for 90 days after the event, together with slides. Plus you will get a personalised CPD certificate via email.

• ACAMH Members MUST login to book onto the webinar in order to access this webinar and get a CPD certificate
• Non-members this is a great time to join ACAMH, take a look at what we have to offer, and make the saving on these sessions

£10 for ACAMH Members (Print, Online, Concession) Join now and save

£15 ACAMH Learn Account holders

£15 Non Members

£5 ACAMH Undergraduate/Postgraduate Members

FREE LMIC Members

Don’t forget as a charity any surplus made is reinvested back as we work to our vision of ‘Sharing best evidence, improving practice’, and our mission to ‘Improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people aged 0-25’.

Who should attend

This webinar is open to all professionals from health, education and social care who are interested in novel approaches to understanding the rising tide of youth mental health problems, school avoidance and school exclusion and the key role of the educational environment as a source of both adversity and enablement.

Colleagues working on the front line and those with a strategic role are equally welcome. It is hoped that the session will stimulate interest and discussion with opportunity for questions and answers.

About the session

Professor Christopher Robertson – Moving on from the Special Educational Needs and Disability and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan: tinkering with policy or reshaping a system?
England’s system of education is ‘in crisis’, in need of short time stabilisation and longer term changes to ensure its sustainability (House of Commons Education Committee, December 2024). This presentation will consider whether the current government’s approach to improving support and outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and/or a disability will be effective.
The talk will also include recommendations for SEN/D system change that may not be on the current policy agenda, but based on the premise that a tinkering approach – characteristic of government intervention in this area of education for over a decade – has failed.

Learning outcomes
1. To update participants (knowledge) on current and pending SEND policy development in England.
2. To provide commentary and analysis on SEN/D policy planning and implementation (understanding), with reference to the SEN/D and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan (Department for Education, 2023).
3. To critically appraise current SEN/D policy planning and implementation in England, and to identify alternative proposals to those that have proved to be ineffective in recent years.

Dr. Annie Swanepoel – An evolutionary perspective on education
Dr Swanepoel will present insights from evolutionary theory as applied to the educational setting. Humans lived as hunter-gatherers for more than 95% of our evolutionary history. It is therefore expected that our bodies and minds are adapted to a hunter-gatherer way of life. There is a clear evolutionary mismatch between the hunter-gatherer way of life and how we live in WEIRD societies (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic). There are definite benefits to living in a WEIRD society and Dr Swanepoel is not advocating a return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. However, there is a lot that we can learn from hunter-gatherers about childrearing. Dr Swanepoel will highlight some simple and cost-neutral evolution-informed adaptations that we could make to the way we raise and educate our children in our modern societies, which would increase wellbeing for all children. She will also refer to ADHD and autism and how a recognition of neurodiversity and some tweaks to how these children are included, could bring significant benefits to all children, young people and their teachers.

Learning outcomes
1. Gain an understanding of evolutionary theory and its application to schools
2. Gain familiarity with terms such as the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA), Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) societies, Alloparenting, Neurodiversity and Evolutionary Mismatch
3. Understand how evolutionary principles can inform how the schools are adapted to increase inclusion, reduce mismatch and improve children’s educational experience and mental health outcomes

Dr. Khan – Education as a Public Health Good
Dr Khan will present a public health perspective on the increasing prevalence of mental health problems across the lifespan with rising societal costs. There will be a review of the emergence of childrens rights (i.e. UNCRC) and the responsibility of society in meeting these rights, including to health care and education. Educational experience, alongside other social determinants, is considered a key influence on health and economic outcomes. The case is made for universal high quality education from the early years onwards as a public health good. It is suggested that by creating more inclusive and enabling educational environments, costs would likely be recovered several-fold over time. This would be seen through reduced emergence of youth mental health problems and the many associated adverse effects including intergenerational harms.

Learning outcomes
1. To gain familiarity with rights theory and the emergence of children’s rights (i.e. UNCRC)
2. To understand the educational environment as a source of both adversity and enablement
3. To understand and advocate for the public health and economic benefits of investment in high quality inclusive education

Andy Couldrick – Connecting Services around Children and Families: Building a Connected System

Children and Families live and grow in integrated informal systems, of family, friends, communities. They have to engage with public services that are disintegrated and misaligned. Often we experience how we take on the role of integrating and coordinating the services we need when we need them. For those who are vulnerable and struggling, this is much harder. Our services have a responsibility to do this, and to wrap around children’s and families’ needs. Why is it so hard? What can we do, within the constraints of scarce resources and competing priorities? Why don’t we do it better? My talk will explore these questions, based on 30 years’ experience of working in systems that do this well, and that do it badly!

Learning outcomes
1. To recognise obstacles to integrated, connected service delivery.
2. To reflect on what we can do to be better

Overall learning outcomes

1. Gain an understanding of evolutionary theory and its application to young learners and schools
2. Gain familiarity with terms such as the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA); Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) societies; Alloparenting and Evolutionary Mismatch
3. Understand how evolutionary principles can inform how the environment is designed to increase inclusion, reduce mismatch and improve childrens’ educational experience and outcomes
4. Gain familiarity with principles of public health as applied to mental health
5. Gain an insight into key points in the history of education and the emergence of children’s rights
6. Understand and advocate for the public health and economic benefits of investment in high quality education

Programme

13:00 – Welcome from Carl Longmore
13:05 – Professor Christopher Robertson – Moving on from the Special Educational Needs and Disability and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan: tinkering with policy or reshaping a system?
13:45 – Andy Couldrick – Connecting Services around Children and Families: Building a Connected System
14:15 – Break
14:30 – Dr. Annie Swanepoel – An evolutionary perspective on education
15:15 – Dr. Khan – Education as a Public Health Good
16:00 – Q&A and Closing Comments from Carl Longmore
16:30 – End

About the speakers

Dr. Annie Swanepoel is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in the SET CAMHS Learning disability team in the Northeast London Foundation Trust. She is the co-chair of the World Psychiatric Association Evolutionary Psychiatry Section and the current Finance Officer and past newsletter editor of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She holds a PhD in Human Physiology and has a special interest in developmental trauma and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Dr. Arif Khan is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. He intercalated in Health Care Ethics and Law at the University of Manchester and has a longstanding interest in social determinant perspectives on health. He has clinical and research interests in safeguarding, parental mental health and the interface between CAMHS and adult mental heath services. He is involved with the Multi-Systemic Therapy Child Abuse and Neglect (MST-CAN) project in Sandwell led by Kings College London. Arif is on the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group (EPSIG) of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a committee member of West Midlands ACAMH.

Carl Longmore oversees the BA Hons Primary Education course at the University of Wolverhampton. They recently received a National Student Survey Score of 96% and are 7th in the country for Education. The course includes a deep focus on SEND and adaptive teaching, praised by Ofsted in the most recent inspection. Carl’s specialism is focused around SEMH and he is also a Trustee at Education Impact Academy (EIAT) SEND schools.

Professor Christopher Robertson is an independent academic and author, policy analyst and adviser to educational organisations with a particular interest in inclusion, special educational needs and disability (ISEN/D) policy and implementation. He is also a visiting professor (Inclusion and SEND) at the University of Derby. His previous roles include lecturing in SEND at the University of Birmingham (with lead responsibility for developing and introducing the National Award for SEN Co-ordination) Canterbury Christ Church University, and the University of London’s Institute of Education.  Christopher is a member of the Special Educational Needs Policy Research Forum’s lead group. He also chair’s the SENCO Forum national e-community and engages in lobbying government to define and regulate the role of special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs) more carefully, and to ensure that SENCOs are appropriately trained and deployed in schools, early years settings and post -16 provision. Christopher writes a regular column for the British Journal of Special Education focusing on the role of the SENCO.

Andy Couldrick – I led the establishment of Birmingham Children’s Trust and was its first Chief Executive, supporting the service to achieve a ‘Good’ Ofsted rating in 2023, after 15 years of failing service in Birmingham. Having retired as Chief Executive and taken on the role of Chair, I am also a Commissioner for the DfE, deployed to work with struggling LA Children’s Services., reporting on progress and improvement to the Minister of State in DfE.