Search results

The purpose of this paper is to develop a child psychosocial framework among stakeholders in areas of disadvantage in three low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), i.e. Kenya, Turkey and Brazil, and to capture their proposed recommendations through action plans according to this framework.

Workshops were facilitated with a total of 54 participants from different disciplines. The framework addressed safety and child-centredness, quality of care, resilience-building in schools and communities, enhancing competencies within existing roles, counselling and psychological interventions, and access to mental health services. Stakeholders’ perspectives were captured through a participatory action procedure.

The emerging 33 categories across the framework dimensions and the three sites led to four overarching and inter-linked themes. These related to community awareness; empowerment and “mobilization” of children, young people and families; inter-agency policy and practice; and capacity-building on skills acquisition at different levels.

The next stage in this service research should be full implementation and evaluation in different LMIC contexts.

It is feasible to implement such a child psychosocial framework in contexts of conflict and disadvantage, and in the absence of specialist mental health services. Active stakeholder engagement and co-production should be central to the next phase of service transformation in LMIC.

This study captured the views and experiences of stakeholders in LMIC areas of disadvantage, and demonstrated their readiness to establish interdisciplinary networks and re-focus existing services.

This study aims to establish the perspectives of community providers on challenges and enablers in developing child mental health capacity in disadvantaged communities in South Africa.

The authors involved 29 community providers operating in a large urban-deprived area in the Gauteng Province, east of Johannesburg. Community providers had educational, social and health care backgrounds. Their perspectives were captured through three focus groups, two participatory workshops and reflective diaries. Data were integrated and subjected to inductive thematic analysis.

Three interlinked themes were identified. Community mobilization was viewed as pre-requisite through mental health awareness and strategies to engage children, youth and parents. Service provision should take into consideration contextual factors, predominantly inequalities, lack of basic needs and gender-based issues (domestic violence, teenage pregnancy and single motherhood). Participants referred to severe mental health needs, and related to physical health conditions, disabilities and impairments, rather than to common mental health problems or wellbeing. They proposed that capacity building should tap into existing resources and integrate with support systems through collaborative working.

Child mental health policy and service design in Majority World Countries (MWCs), should involve all informal and structural support systems and stakeholders. Contextual factors require consideration, especially in disadvantaged communities and low-resource settings, and should be addressed through joined up working.

Children’s mental health needs are largely unmet in MWC-disadvantaged communities. These findings capture the experiences and perspectives of various community providers on how to enhance mental health provision by mobilizing communities and resources.

The voluntary sector has an important role to play in the provision of services for people with mental health needs of lesser severity, thus complementing statutory services, as suggested by recent national policy. This article describes such a service for young homeless people, and discusses the perceptions of key stakeholders of the benefits and challenges of such a service. The service largely met the mental health needs of young people who would not have easily accessed statutory mental health services, and who fulfilled the criteria (low/moderate need) of the service. Challenges for the future included the different organisational cultures, the professional isolation of the mental health practitioners and the lack of operational and commissioning links with statutory mental health services.

Young homeless people have mental health needs. Research and national policies have highlighted that accommodation providers need to offer holistic interventions to encourage this vulnerable group to break the cycle of homelessness. Currently no research literature documents how homeless shelters respond to mental health needs. This research was intended to address this research question.A postal questionnaire was sent to 132 managers of homeless shelters, achieving a response rate of 64.4%. Frequencies and descriptive statistics were calculated, and written data was analysed using content analysis. Mental health problems were highly prevalent, and homeless shelters responded in a variety of ways (use of GP services, internal services, referring to external services, in‐house outreach services, no service provision, etc). Only 27.1% of managers of homeless shelters reported that their services were sufficient to meet their young people's needs. These findings reflect the need for inclusion of mental health in homeless shelters' strategic objectives, and development of commissioning of local partnerships with health agencies.

Specialist CAMHS provide skilled assessment and interventions for children, young people and their families who have mental health disorders. The training needs of the staff who work in specialist CAMHS are not always clear or prioritised, due to the complexities and differing contexts in which specialist CAMHS are provided. The aim of this paper was to establish stakeholders' experiences of service complexities and challenges that affect training within specialist CAMHS. The project employed interviews to gain wide‐ranging consultation with key stakeholder groups. The sample consisted of 45 participants recruited from policy departments, professional bodies, higher education providers, commissioners, service managers, and practitioners. The participants identified a number of themes that limit training, and put forward solutions on how these could be facilitated in the future. Emerging themes related to leadership and the role of service managers, strategic management of training, commissioning, levels of staff training, resources, impact of training on service users, and availability of training programmes. The findings emphasise the need for the strategic workforce planning of training to meet service delivery goals. Policy, commissioning, workforce training strategies, service needs, and delivery of training should be integrated and closely linked.

The purpose of this paper is to examine students’ understandings of mental health and their learning preferences, in order to provide guidance for developing targeted mental health education.

A study-specific self-administered questionnaire was used at two English schools (n=980; ages 11-18), incorporating a combination of open-ended and fixed-choice items. Data were subject to content analysis, cross-tabulation of frequencies and statistical analyses.

Overall, students understood mental health in terms of personal attributes or disorder, however older students were more likely to talk about relationships. Males were less likely to say they wanted to learn about mental health than females, believing they had no need to learn more. White students were also less interested in learning about mental health than Indian students. Overall, students said they would not use social media to learn, however Indian students were most likely to want to use it. Younger students preferred school-based learning to online.

The questionnaires were study specific and self-report. However interesting demographic variations in responses were found, worthy of further exploration.

Policymakers should consider targeted mental health interventions in schools and research the potential roles/barriers of the internet and social media. Long-term possible benefits relate to improved preventative strategies within schools.

Previous research has focused on the delivery of mental health promotion/education in schools, whereas the current study drew on a large sample of students to understand how they define mental health for themselves, as well as how they prefer to learn about it.

Mental health of children and young people is often discussed in terms of mental illness, however, such an approach is limited. The purpose of this paper is to explore young people's views of what mental health is and how to stay mentally healthy.

The paper investigated young people's views on these two issues through a series of workshops. In total 218, 13-year-old schoolchildren produced posters with their impressions of the issues. Themes that young people identified were then discussed with them in terms of the existing Bright Futures definition of mental health. Poster responses were subsequently transcribed and thematically analysed.

The paper identified a number of themes for each question. Mental health was viewed in terms of personal attributes of an individual, illness, ability for personal management and establishing social relations. Young people saw mental health maintained through a combination of lifestyle choices, personal attributes, management of self and environment, social support and relationships, as well as treatment of illness. These themes corresponded to the ones identified by the Bright Futures.

This study highlights the complexity of young people's views on the meaning of mental health. They were also more positive, open and competent in discussing mental health than previously suggested. However, a more systematic investigation of views and attitudes is necessary, including younger children. Additionally, health care professionals are likely to benefit from young people's engagement in planning and implementing strategies for better mental health.

This paper is one of the few to investigate the positive meaning of mental health with young people.