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The purpose of this paper is to describe mental health-related contact with educational professionals amongst children in the British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey (BCAMHS) 2004.

BCAMHS 2004 was a community-based survey of 5,325 children aged 5-16, with follow-up in 2007. This paper reports the percentage of children with a psychiatric disorder that had mental health-related contact with education professionals (categorised as teachers or specialist education services) and the percentage with specific types of psychiatric disorders amongst those contacting services.

Two-thirds (66.1 per cent, 95 per cent CI: 62.4-69.8 per cent) of children with a psychiatric disorder had contact with a teacher regarding their mental health and 31.1 per cent (95 per cent CI: 27.5-34.7 per cent) had contact with special education either in 2004 or 2007, or both. Over half of children reporting special education contact (55.1 per cent, 95 per cent CI: 50.0-60.2 per cent) and almost a third reporting teacher contact in relation to mental health (32.1 per cent, 95 per cent CI: 29.7-34.6 per cent) met criteria for a psychiatric disorder.

Many children in contact with education professionals regarding mental health experienced clinical levels of difficulty. Training is needed to ensure that contact leads to prompt intervention and referral if necessary.

This is the first paper to report on mental health-related service contact with education professionals in the 2004 BCAMHS survey along with its 2007 follow-up. It identifies high levels of teacher contact which represent challenges in supporting staff with training, resources and access to mental health services.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the feasibility of a screening test for looked after children in order to identify undetected psychiatric disorders.

Children aged four to 16 in care in one London Borough for four consecutive months were eligible for screening. Carers, teachers and children aged over 11 were asked to complete the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Where the SDQ suggested that a psychiatric disorder was “possible” or “probable”, participants were then invited to complete the Developmental and Well‐Being Assessment, which was rated by a senior psychiatrist to generate diagnoses if appropriate.

The paper finds that over one year, 23 children were eligible for screening. A total of 18 underwent the initial stage of screening, and seven were subsequently diagnosed with a formal psychiatric disorder.

This study illustrates the unmet need for mental health interventions among children looked after by the local authority and confirms the feasibility of a simple screening protocol.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development process of building an assessment model to assess the emotional and behavioural needs of “looked after children”.

The paper is a technical paper developing and evaluating a process for comprehensively assessing children ' s needs using a combination of three existing tools.

The paper identifies a model to assess “looked after” children and highlights some of the early benefits and challenges which have been encountered using this model.

This paper suggests a model and timeframe to ensure that detailed assessments of the mental health of “looked after” children are effectively carried out.

There is a potential for an improvement in assessment of looked after children that will lead to the identification of appropriate interventions and services.

The paper is new in identifying a combination of assessment measures and a timeline to complete these.