We have commissioned Isos Partnership to undertake a new piece of research exploring the issues that local government faces in supporting the mental health and emotional wellbeing of children and young people and to develop the evidence-base of good practice in this field.
Discussions with members have highlighted the need to develop a clearer picture of the relationship between local government and CAMHS, and the role councils play in identifying and addressing mental health needs early.
This is an area where we know that demand for support is rising, that there is increasingly limited capacity to respond in a timely way despite the evidence of the efficacy of early support, and there are complex inter-relationships with other universal services. Our ambition is that the research will shed light on these issues.
The first phase of the research will involve two workshops in July, one located in London and the other in Manchester. These workshops will be open invitation and act as an opportunity to involve a broad range of stakeholders in the discussions.
The purpose of the workshops will be to develop:
- An overview of the way multiple services and partners interact in supporting children and young people’s mental health;
- A clear sense of the issues and challenges that local government faces in effectively supporting children and young people’s emotional and mental health;
- Examples of good practice in how councils and their partners have worked together to improve the emotional and mental health of young people in their area.
There will also be an opportunity for councils to put themselves forward to host field visits for the second phase of the research which will take place in September and October 2019.
We would like to invite you to nominate up to two delegates from your local area to attend one of the workshops. We are keen to attract a mix of attendees to the workshop including those in strategic leadership positions in local authorities, public health, clinical commissioning leads and representatives from mental health providers. We hope that you would consider attending yourself and/or extending this invitation to others in your area who could make the most contribution to the discussion and gain the greatest insights from participating.
The locations and times for the two workshops are as follows:
London, Tuesday 9 July 2019
Local Government Association, 18 Smith Square, Westminster, SW1P 3HZ
Manchester, Wednesday 15 July 2019
etc.venues, 11 Portland Street, M1 3HU
Following these workshops, the second phase of the research will be based on fieldwork with a sample of eight local authorities who have established good practice in supporting children and people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing. These visits will be used to develop case studies of effective practice across the range of services, partners and providers supporting children and young people’s mental wellbeing.
If you would like to be involved in these but cannot make the workshops, then please do not hesitate to get in touch.
