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Find out more about virtual attendance
This national conference focuses on transforming mental health services for children and young people, ensuring early intervention, and developing integrated services with clear care pathways from first intervention to crisis and inpatient care. The conference will look at national developments, using quality improvement methodology to address waiting times and demand, and will also focus on suicide prevention and safety, self harm, co-production involvement of children and families in CAMHS, and inter-agency working and access to services.
The conference will include a workshop focusing on improving mental health support in school following the development of NHS mental health support teams which are now in place in around 4,700 schools and colleges across the country, with 287 expert teams offering support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issues.
The welcome progress that has been made in recent years on improving children’s access to the right support is struggling to keep up with this demand – with waiting times increasing in the first time in years. It is vital that this support is made available because to allow children the chance to recover, and go on to achieve all that they want to, but also because without support things can end up in crisis.
Access to timely treatment is vital. Without the right care at the right time, children can end up in crisis... Every child should be supported to have good mental health, from the earliest years of their life through to adulthood. To achieve this will need the right combination of preventative efforts to address the determinants of poor mental health, alongside early and appropriate intervention.
The last year has been one of the most difficult for this age group, emerging from the pandemic to more limited prospects for their futures, coupled with an increase in academic pressure to catch up on lost learning, and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis. The current state of play cannot continue. The government must get a grip of the situation
This conference will enable you to:
- Network with colleagues who are working to improve mental health services for children and young people
- Reflect on the lived experience of a young person with lived experience
- Learn from outstanding practice in transforming CAMHS
- Update your knowledge on national developments and learning including how we can improve accessibility and waiting times
- Learn from the system-wide independent investigation into concerns and issues raised relating to the safety and quality of CAMHS provision
- Understand how quality improvement techniques can be embedded into CAMHS services
- Improve early intervention and working with schools in a preventative way to improve wellbeing and resilience
- Develop your skills in new ways of working with children and young people in crisis
- Improve suicide prevention and learning from suicide – including the role of the Suicide and Self Harm competency framework, and the 2022 NICE Guideline on Self Harm
- Reflect on and improve co-production and user involvement with children, young people and families
- Working with schools in improving wellbeing reducing suicide in children and young people
- Implement recommendations from Getting it Right First Time in Children and Young Peoples Mental Health (GiRFT)
- Self assess and reflect on your own practice
- Supports CPD professional development and acts as revalidation evidence. This course provides 5 Hrs training for CPD subject to peer group approval for revalidation purposes
