Filmed recordings

Ask the Expert sessions exclusively for teachers and education professionals

• Bereavement, Grief, and Loss with Dr. Tina Rae
• Addiction & Substance Use with Dr. Paolo Deluca 
• Understanding Self-harm & Suicide with Professor Dennis Ougrin
• Eating Disorders with Dr. Dasha Nicholls
• Understanding Trauma with David Trickey
• Mental Health Conditions in Young People: Prevalence, Shifts & Support with Professor Mina Fazal
• Anxiety; Cues, Clues & Support for Young People in School with Professor Cathy Creswell and Helen Manley
  
• Improving Children’s Sleep; The role a teacher can play with Dr. Faith Orchard
• Screen Time & Mental Health – Balancing the positive with the negative with Dr. Max Davie

Pedagogy in Practice sessions exclusively for teachers and education professionals

• Social Media
• Addiction and Substance Use
• Self Harm
• Eating Disorders
• Trauma
• Bullying and Loneliness
• Anxiety
• Sleep and screen time

COVID & the impact on Mental Health of School Closures – CAMHS around the Campfire recording
For this session we welcomed Dr. Karen Mansfield, a postdoctoral research scientist from the School Mental Health Project, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, to discuss her JCPP Advances paper ‘‘Covid-19 partial school closures and mental health problems: a cross sectional survey of 11,000 adolescents to determine those most at risk’’.

Managing transition for school leaders post lockdown
Short film from charity Nip in the Bud about strategies school staff can use to support children through difficult transitions so that they feel happy, safe and open to learning.

Professor Tamsin Ford CBE – ‘Supporting children’s mental health as schools re-open’
Slides and transcript available. This was a live webinar recorded on Wednesday 8 July 2020 for ACAMH West Midlands Branch.

Podcasts

School behaviour difficulties, school based interventions, and inclusive education – In Conversation with Dr. Alice Jones Bartoli
Dr. Alice Jones Bartoli looks at how well equipped schools and teachers are when it comes to dealing with child and adolescent mental health issues, and what more can be done to support teachers and leaders in creating mentally healthy schools, and in supporting the staff themselves.

The Mental Health Impact of COVID-19 School Closures
The focus of this podcast is on the JCPP Advances paper ‘Covid-19 partial school closures and mental health problems: a cross sectional survey of 11,000 adolescents to determine those most at risk’, written by Dr. Karen Mansfield, Professor Mina Fazel, and colleagues.

‘Creating mentally healthy schools’ – In conversation with Professor Jess Deighton
We are honoured to spend some time talking to Professor Jess Deighton, about the role schools can play in young people’s mental health, about school-based interventions, and some insights from her latest research.

Mental Wellbeing in Schools, and the Global Mental Health Crisis
In this podcast, we talk to Lauren Cross about her research interests around mental health and wellbeing in schools and inequalities during childhood and adolescence, as well as her co-authored CAMH debate paper ‘Is There a True Global Children and Young People’s Mental Health Crisis Fact or Fiction’.

‘Data sets, mental well-being and school-based interventions’ In Conversation with Dr. Praveetha Patalay
In this podcast, Dr. Praveetha Patalay discusses data sets, the difference between mental health and mental health well-being and school-based interventions. Praveetha also talks about her recent JCPP paper on ‘Prescribing measures: unintended negative consequences of mandating standardized mental health measurement’.

Dr. Maria Loades ‘COVID19 and social isolation, school-based interventions, and CBT’ – In Conversation
Dr. Maria Loades discusses Covid19 and its implications for young people’s mental health, the Rapid Systematic Review exploring the repercussions of the pandemic on social isolation and loneliness.

In Conversation… Professor Tasmin Ford the importance of schools in a child’s mental health
Professor Tamsin Ford, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Exeter Medical School, talks about attachment and early intervention, and explains why schools are an important setting in relation to child mental health.

Research Digests

How effective are tools to help school staff better respond to young people who self-harm?
Aureliane Pierret and colleagues at the University of Cambridge carried out a systematic review into the effectiveness, feasibility and acceptability of interventions and tools to support school staff to better respond to young people who disclose self-harm.

Are school-based interventions for depression and anxiety symptoms effective?
Gee et al. conducted a systematic search for randomised controlled trials of indicated psychological interventions delivered in an education setting. They focused on trials of interventions for adolescents aged 10-19 with elevated symptoms of depression and/or anxiety.

How useful are Ofsted ratings for predicting educational outcomes and wellbeing at secondary school?
“The factors parents care about most when selecting a school – their child’s educational achievement and wellbeing – are negligibly predicted by Ofsted ratings”, says Sophie von Stumm, lead researcher of a new study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

The association between anxiety and poor school attendance
School plays a key role in children’s development, and frequent absence from school increases the likelihood of a range of adverse outcomes in childhood and later life. This includes poor academic performance, social isolation, economic deprivation and unemployment in adulthood. There are many risk factors for frequent school absence, including factors related to the child and their family, school and community.

Teacher assessments could replace high-stake testing to improve student well-being
Many students experience anxiety and distress during exams, and these emotions can have a negative effect on achievement. Notably, one of the top-reported concerns voiced by children in the UK is the stress and anxiety associated with school work and exam performance.

Schools need more specialist support
Schools have a central role in supporting young people with mental health problems, but the level of and type of support available to affected students is unclear. A convenience sample survey of 577 school staff from 341 schools in England has shed light on this issue.

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We have recently launched an initiative aimed at teachers, to enable schools to access and put to use resources that can genuinely make a difference to the mental wellbeing and educational outcomes of young people.

In recognition of the rising mental health challenges faced by children and young people, we have kick-started our Mental Health in Schools initiative, with the aim of producing a series of webinars for teachers which disseminate research-informed, evidence-based knowledge and practice around current key issues in the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.

The first of this pilot series, known as ‘Ask the Expert’ aims to increase the knowledge of teachers and consists of 4 x 75-minute live webinars, with an expert guest speaker and hosted by Professor Barry Carpenter. The webinars have been developed in collaboration with the education charity, Coram Life Education. Topics are rooted in the new statutory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum, with Screen Time and Sleep delivered in the Autumn term of 2021 and Anxiety and Common Mental Health Conditions coming in Spring 2022.

The second of this pilot series, coined ‘Pedagogy in Practice’, is aimed at creating engaging
resources for teachers relating to mental health teaching themes in the RSHE framework and is
closely aligned to the ‘Ask the Expert’ series. ‘Pedagogy in Practice’ aims to stimulate innovative
practice in teaching and learning to meet curriculum requirements and support mental health. The pilot phase will include the development of two modules: Sleep and Anxiety, and will be developed in partnership with The Chartered College of Teaching during the first half of 2022.

Professor Barry Carpenter, CBE, OBE, D. Litt, PhD, ACAMH Board Member and Mental Health in Schools Advisory Group Chair, said “We are committed to helping improve the knowledge needed by Teachers to deliver the statutory Relationship, Sex & Health Education (RSHE) curriculum requirements, specifically in relation to subjects pertaining to mental wellbeing. We are also looking to build capacity for differentiating and personalizing content to meet individual, as well as group needs.”

He goes on to say “Schools are an anchor institution in supporting young peoples’ mental wellbeing, we believe ACAMH and our partners Coram Life Education and The Chartered College of Teaching can truly make a difference by sharing the best evidence in a way that is accessible and tailored to the needs of teaching professionals.”

We plan to develop a wider series of Ask the Expert & Pedagogy in Practice resources over the course of the next 18 months, incorporating up to ten of the most pertinent topics within the RSHE framework, such as Trauma, Self-Harm and Bereavement.

The charity Nip in the Bud has produced a short film and fact sheet to help parents and teachers deal with any potential feelings of apprehension and anxiety that children may experience on returning to school.

In this film 8 minute film Dr. Jess Richardson, Principal Clinical Psychologist, National & Specialist CAMHS and Maudsley provides important and straightforward advice. There is also an accompanying comprehensive Fact Sheet.

Nip in the Bud provides free resources about mental health awareness for primary school teachers and parents. Their short films and fact sheets can be accessed freely on their website.

The content for their ‘Information Films’ has been provided by experts from the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and from Great Ormond Street Hospital. In addition their ‘Real Life Experience’ films show interviews with young people and parents who have been affected and who speak frankly and movingly about their experiences.

The conditions covered so far are ADHD, Anxiety, Autism, Conduct Disorder, Depression, OCD and PTSD.

You can follow them on twitter @NipintheBudFilm