Outcomes of Providing Children Aged 7-12 Years With Access to Evidence-Based Anxiety Treatment Via a Standalone Digital Intervention Using Immersive Gaming Technology: Real-World Evaluation.

Background: Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health conditions in childhood, but most children with anxiety disorders do not access evidence-based interventions. The delivery of therapeutic interventions via digital technologies has been proposed to significantly increase timely access to evidence-based treatment. Lumi Nova (BfB Labs Limited) is a digital therapeutic intervention designed to deliver evidence-based anxiety treatment for those aged 7-12 years through a mobile app incorporating immersive gaming technology.

Delivering a sleep intervention across a youth mental health service using non-expert practitioners: A service evaluation.

Aims: Poor sleep is highly prevalent in young people and increases risk of mental health difficulties, yet access to sleep interventions remains limited. This paper evaluates the use of a sleep intervention delivered by non-expert practitioners in a secondary care youth mental health service.

Method: Assistant psychologists were trained to deliver a six-session 1:1 cognitive-behavioural sleep intervention adapted for use with young people with mental health difficulties.

The Iterative Design and Development of an Affordable Ultrasound Simulator.

Simulation-based medical education (SBME) offers a secure and controlled environment for training in ultrasound-related clinical skills such as nerve blocking and intravenous cannulation. Sonographer training for point-of-care ultrasound often adopts the train-the-trainer (TTT) model, wherein a select group of sonographers receive on-site training to subsequently instruct others. This model traditionally relies on expensive commercial ultrasound simulators, which presents a barrier to the scale-up of the TTT model.

Doing research in non-specialist mental health services for children and young people: lessons learnt from a process evaluation of the ICALM (Interpersonal Counselling for Adolescent Low Mood) feasibility randomised controlled trial.

Background: The rising prevalence of adolescent mild depression in the UK and the paucity of evidence-based interventions in non-specialist sectors where most cases present, creates an urgent need for early psychological interventions. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are considered the gold standard for obtaining unbiased estimates of intervention effectiveness. However, the complexity of mental health settings poses great challenges for effectiveness evaluations.

Improving programme-led and focused interventions for eating disorders: An experts' consensus statement-A UK perspective.

Objective: Eating disorders are associated with significant illness burden and costs, yet access to evidence-based care is limited. Greater use of programme-led and focused interventions that are less resource-intensive might be part of the solution to this demand-capacity mismatch.

Method: In October 2022, a group of predominantly UK-based clinical and academic researchers, charity representatives and people with lived experience convened to consider ways to improve access to, and efficacy of, programme-led and focused interventions for eating disorders in an attempt to bridge the demand-capacity gap.

'Very hit and miss': an interpretive phenomenological analysis of ambulance service care for young people experiencing mental health crisis.

Introduction: The ambulance service provides vital front line mental healthcare for young people in crisis, but there is a lack of evidence to guide best practice in this area. The lived experiences of service users can offer important insights to guide service development, therefore we carried out a qualitative evaluation of care provided by the ambulance service to young people experiencing a mental health-related emergency.

Methods: Ten participants aged 16-25 years who had used the ambulance service due to a mental health crisis within the past 2 years were interviewed about their experiences and view of the care they received.

Clinical and cost-effectiveness of social recovery therapy for the prevention and treatment of long-term social disability among young people with emerging severe mental illness (PRODIGY): randomised controlled trial.

Background: Young people with social disability and severe and complex mental health problems have poor outcomes, frequently struggling with treatment access and engagement. Outcomes may be improved by enhancing care and providing targeted psychological or psychosocial intervention.

Aims: We aimed to test the hypothesis that adding social recovery therapy (SRT) to enhanced standard care (ESC) would improve social recovery compared with ESC alone.

Self-evaluation as an active ingredient in the experience and treatment of adolescent depression; an integrated scoping review with expert advisory input.

Background: Negative self-perceptions is one of the most common symptoms of depression in young people, and has been found to be strongly associated with severity of depression symptoms. Psychological treatments for adolescent depression are only moderately effective. Understanding the role and importance of these self-perceptions may help to inform and improve treatments.

Editorial Perspective: A call to collective action - improving the implementation of evidence in children and young people's mental health.

With growing mental health needs of children and young people and the increasing demand on children and young people's mental health services, narrowing the evidence to practice implementation gap has never been more important. Implementation science and research provides useful theory, identification of barriers and facilitators as well as suggested strategies for improved uptake of evidence-based treatments, but the application of these is often limited. Supporting optimal learning and implementation cultures based on collaborative, relational and pragmatic action planning is likely key.

Interpersonal counselling for adolescent depression delivered by youth mental health workers without core professional training: a feasibility randomised controlled trial study protocol.

Background: Depression is a common health problem during adolescence and is associated with adverse academic, social and health outcomes. To meet the demand for treatment for adolescent depression, there is a need for evidence-based interventions suitable for delivery outside of specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Interpersonal Counselling for Adolescents (IPC-A) is a brief manualised intervention for adolescent depression suitable for delivery by staff who are not qualified health professionals following participation in a brief training course.

Low-intensity sleep intervention in a youth mental health service: a case series analysis.

Background: There is increasing evidence of a strong association between sleep and mental health in both adolescents and adults. CBT for insomnia is being applied to good effect with adults with mental health difficulties but there are few studies examining its applicability to adolescents within mental health services.

Method: We carried out a case series analysis (n = 15) looking at the feasibility, accessibility and impact of a low-intensity sleep intervention for young people (14-25 years) being seen by a secondary care Youth Mental Health team in the UK.

Review: Delivering mental health support within schools and colleges - a thematic synthesis of barriers and facilitators to implementation of indicated psychological interventions for adolescents.

Background: Increasing the role of schools and colleges in the provision of mental health services for young people has the potential to improve early intervention and access to treatment. We aimed to understand what factors influence the successful implementation of indicated psychological interventions within schools and colleges to help guide increased provision of mental health support within education settings.

Methods: Systematic search for studies that have reported barriers or facilitators to the implementation of indicated interventions for adolescent emotional disorders delivered within schools and further education/sixth form colleges (CRD42018102830).

Practitioner Review: Effectiveness of indicated school-based interventions for adolescent depression and anxiety - a meta-analytic review.

Background: Interest in delivering psychological interventions within schools to facilitate early intervention is increasing. However, most reviews have focused on universal or preventative programmes rather than interventions designed to decrease existing symptoms of depression or anxiety. This paper aims to provide a meta-analytic review of randomised controlled trials of indicated psychological interventions for young people aged 10-19 with elevated symptoms of depression and/or anxiety.

Evaluation of a non-diagnostic 'Psychology of Emotions' group intervention within a UK youth IAPT service: a mixed-methods approach.

Background: A novel CBT-based intervention, tailored for young people, was developed in response to concerns about traditional diagnostically based approaches. Psychology of Emotions workshops use a normative approach to emotional difficulty instead of a diagnostic framework.

Aims: To evaluate the acceptability and efficacy of Psychology of Emotions workshops within an IAPT service for young people aged 16-25 years.

The effect of non-pharmacological sleep interventions on depression symptoms: A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.

Poor sleep is a significant risk factor for depression across the lifespan and sleep problems have been hypothesised to contribute to the onset and maintenance of depression symptoms. However, sleep problems are usually not a direct target of interventions for depression. A range of non-pharmacological treatments can reduce sleep problems but it is unclear whether these interventions also reduce other depression symptoms.

The effect of a youth mental health service model on access to secondary mental healthcare for young people aged 14-25 years.

Aims and methodThe Norfolk Youth Service was created in 2012 in response to calls to redesign mental health services to better meet the needs of young people. The new service model transcends traditional boundaries by creating a single, 'youth friendly' service for young people aged 14-25 years. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the transition to this new model on patterns of referral, acceptance and service use.

Creating an innovative youth mental health service in the United Kingdom: The Norfolk Youth Service.

Young people attempting to access mental health services in the United Kingdom often find traditional models of care outdated, rigid, inaccessible and unappealing. Policy recommendations, research and service user opinion suggest that reform is needed to reflect the changing needs of young people. There is significant motivation in the United Kingdom to transform mental health services for young people, and this paper aims to describe the rationale, development and implementation of a novel youth mental health service in the United Kingdom, the Norfolk Youth Service.

Young people's experiences of Social Recovery Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and treatment as usual in the PRODIGY trial.

Aim: The PRODIGY trial is an ongoing randomized controlled trial of Social Recovery Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (SRCBT), a new intervention designed to improve social functioning in young people at risk of long-term social disability due to severe and complex mental health problems. The aim of this qualitative sub-study was to understand trial participants' experiences of SRCBT and the control condition, treatment as usual.

Methods: Trial participants were aged 16-25 years with socially disabling severe and complex mental health problems.

Maximizing the Adjacent Possible in Automata Chemistries.

Automata chemistries are good vehicles for experimentation in open-ended evolution, but they are by necessity complex systems whose low-level properties require careful design. To aid the process of designing automata chemistries, we develop an abstract model that classifies the features of a chemistry from a physical (bottom up) perspective and from a biological (top down) perspective. There are two levels: things that can evolve, and things that cannot.