Emerging Minds: Action for Child Mental Health

Approximately one in ten children and young people have a diagnosable mental health problem. Mental health problems in childhood and adolescence bring significant emotional, social, and educational disadvantage and present a risk for ongoing mental health problems in adulthood. As such, recent influential policy documents (including Future in Mind, The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, Transforming children and young people's mental health provision: A green paper) highlight the need to prioritise the promotion of good mental health and the prevention of and early intervention for mental health difficulties in children and young people

Our vision is to see the number of children and young people who experience mental health problems halved within 20 years. The best way to meet this ambitious goal is to make full use of what is already known from developmental psychopathology research and to draw on knowledge and expertise from other disciplines to establish the best ways to enable this research to reach and benefit large numbers of children, young people and families.

In terms of mental health promotion, research has identified robust predictors of the emergence and persistence of mental health problems in children and young people. However, considerable challenges remain in the implementation of this knowledge to promote good mental health and prevent mental health difficulties among children and young people, including barriers associated with stigma and a lack of sustainable and scalable methods of delivery.

In terms of early intervention, child and adolescent mental health research has also had success in the development of effective interventions for common mental health problems, however only a small minority of children and young people with mental health conditions receive effective support. Furthermore, even where children meet thresholds for referral to specialist mental health services, they frequently experience long delays in accessing care.

This Network will facilitate novel research to increase the reach of effective mental health promotion, and prevention of and early intervention for mental health problems across a range of settings. We will bring together academics from health research, arts, design, humanities and physical science disciplines in order to develop creative, sustainable stakeholder-led solutions based on an understanding of, for example, what has made health messages 'stick' (medical history, design theory, history of design); where, in what format and how to present information and interventions at scale in ways that maintain trust and security (media, sociology, information design, computer science). The Network will include a broad range of stakeholders, including children, young people and carers with relevant lived experience, third sector partners, practitioners, policy makers, heritage professionals and industrial partners. This will ensure that the research reflects the needs of potential beneficiaries and the current practical and policy context and that solutions are developed that are scalable and sustainable to promote widespread dissemination.

The ultimate beneficiaries of this Network will be children, young people and those who care for them. They will benefit from the increased reach of developmental psychopathology research to improve access to effective means to promote positive mental health and prevent and treat mental health problems. Our aim is to provide a catalyst for research that halves the number of children and young people who experience ongoing mental health problems within 20 years, and brings broader impacts on society through improved life chances for children and young people (e.g. educational and occupational) and reduced costs to society (e.g. through health care needs that may otherwise persist in to adulthood).

The Network will also bring benefits to policy makers, commissioners, practitioners, third sector organisations and industrial partners who will benefit from the provision of knowledge, guidance and tools to promote good mental health and interventions to prevent and treat child and adolescent mental health problem in ways that are scalable and sustainable.

Through our partnership with the Museum of Mental Health, we will also bring new perspectives to bear on historic collections related to mental health, facilitating a deeper understanding of their significance for curatorial staff, visitors and, through professional networks, the wider museums and heritage sector. This will enhance the current activities of the National Alliance of Museums, Health and Wellbeing, enabling interaction between academics, clinicians and heritage professionals and adding to the 'everyday' wellbeing agenda of the Alliance by focusing on complex clinical contexts and the ways in which historic objects and records might be mobilized to ensure better access to mental health support.

In the short term, the main direct impacts from the proposed Network include:
(i) Policymakers, third sector organisations and practitioners will have the opportunity to interact with academics from diverse backgrounds to develop creative solutions to the current difficulties they face and engage in research grant applications that advance policy and practice.
(ii) Industrial partners (including design practitioners, technology providers) will have the opportunity to interact with academics from diverse backgrounds to develop creative solutions to industrial/ commercial problems, to develop intellectual property, and engage in research grant applications that advance commercialisation opportunities.
(iii) Heritage professionals will have the opportunity to engage with academics, experts by experience, practitioners and policy makers to explore how historic collections can inspire policy change and initiatives designed to improve mental health and wellbeing.

We will measure our success in achieving these short-term impacts by recording the number of joint applications for research projects that include academics and policy makers, third sector organisations, practitioners, industrial partners, and/or heritage professionals. This will include applications to our research development fund and for externally funded research projects and studentships. We will also record ways in which network activities and outputs and activities have influenced policy, practice and commercial opportunities, for example, policy and community initiatives, creation of intellectual property.

In addition to the impacts outlined above, we also expect that we will facilitate research that has far broader impacts. It is impossible to state exactly how these diverse projects will move beyond our whole-Network ambitions, however, through judicious selection and support we will ensure that the network activities help realise our ultimate goal of reducing the proportion of children who experience ongoing mental health problems. We outline our approach in the Pathway to Impact section.