Free Occasional Newsletter
ISSUE No. 7 | September 2013 | Your
FON can be downloaded from www.ucl.ac.uk/EBPU
EBPU Projects News |CAMHS Press: New publications | Article: Consistent Measure | CORC Corner
What is shared decision making?
“...a mechanism to decrease the informational
and power asymmetry between [professionals
and young people] by increasing [young
people’s] information, sense of autonomy, and/
or control over treatment decisions that affect
their well-being” (Charles , 1999).
Shared decision making is rapidly
becoming part of the contemporary
therapy room and young people are
clearly interested in the reasons for and
consequences of the decisions made in
their name.
Together with CORC, YoungMinds
and Hertfordshire Partnership NHS
Foundation Trust, EBPU has launched
a new training: U-PROMISE (Using
Patient Reported Outcome Measures
to Improve Service Effectiveness) aimed
at professionals working within CAMH
services, offering bespoke support and
guidance in application of measures,
engagement and communication with
young CAMHS users to ensure outcome
measures support both shared decision
making and collaborative practice.
From a bowling event organised by EBPU
Making Shared DecisionS
a CAMHS Reality
Making shared decisions a reality for young people with mental health issues was
the theme of several events organised by the CAMHS Evidence Based Practice Unit
this year. They are further building on the successfully completed Closing the Gap
project to develop and explore a range of interactive and evidence based tools to
support and complement the therapeutic process. If you work with young people
at risk of or with mental health problems, new EBPU projects involving interactive
portals, designed to support young CAMHS users might be of interest. See our
CAMHS web, What’s Up and My CAMHS Choices projects and please get in touch if
you are interested in the new U-PROMISE training.
Three new websites are soon to be
available through EBPU Projects.
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that is being taken forward by the Evidence Based Practice Unit to develop and implement an
online portal to support and complement the therapeutic process.
Find out more : email EBPU@annafreud. org
Flyer for the last EBPU event
2/ EBPU FON
PROJECT NEWS
What’s UP/
IncludeME! for School
What’s Up is an exciting new project
that started in May 2013 with funding
from the Department of Education.
The project is developing and will trial
an interactive e-portal designed to
give vulnerable young people with
behavioural or emotional difficulties
access to evidence-based mental health
materials. The expectation is that pupils
will be able to track their emotions and
behaviours, access relevant support
materials, and link to local and national
sources of information. This may include
issues such as anger management,
anxiety, stress, and body image.
The project focuses on secondary
school-age pupils (11-16) with the
ambition of extending to primary school
pupils at a later date. The project will
use the latest technology, both web and
mobile facilitated, to enable pupils to
become active participants in managing
their own behaviour and emotions,
supporting shared-decision making for
staff working with these young people.
The project’s goals are to enhance
and support academic engagement,
improve attendance and improve
academic achievement. EBPU is working
in partnership with YoungMinds,
who will support and facilitate pupil
engagement, and MegaNexus, who
are developing and providing support
technology. Simone Holley has joined
EBPU as Research Project Manager and
will be leading this project: “We have
already had some very encouraging
discussions with teachers, staff from
youth centres, and most importantly
pupils, who are all full of enthusiasm
about the project!”
CAMHSWeb/ IncludeME!
The Evidence Based Practice Unit (EBPU)
is leading a three year Department of
Health funded project to develop and
implement an interactive, online portal
September 2013
to help improve engagement with
children and young people accessing
mental health services. Aimed at a
broad range of services, whether based
in a clinic, school or the community,
this online portal is aimed at helping
clinicians work more collaboratively
with 10-14 year olds, drawing on the
principles of Shared Decision Making.
Using the latest digital technology,
children and young people will be
empowered through the portal to
become more active participants in their
care by allowing them to personalise
their treatment packages, help make
informed decisions about their
treatment, communicate their needs
and preferences, and allow them to
jointly review with therapists their
progress and goals. The EBPU has been working with
software developers SilverCloudHealth
to develop the portal, which will be
refined over a phased roll-out and will
incorporate feedback from services
throughout all stages.
The project will be drawing on the
knowledge and findings from other
projects being undertaken at the EBPU,
including Closing the Gap and My
CAMHS Choices.
Informed Choice/
My CAMHS Choices
The Informed Choice project aims
to create, improve, evaluate and
disseminate resources for young people
to help them to make informed decisions
about their mental health care and be
active participants in their treatment
throughout. The materials are currently
being refined in consultation with
young people and are expected to be
completed and introduced into services
during the next stage of the project.
Two key initiatives have been refined
and developed as part of this project.
“Choosing what’s best for you” provides
web and paper based support for young
people to understand and compare the
evidence base for different treatments.
“My CAMHS Choices” provides video
footage and written commentary via
the web to help young people consider
what going to CAMHS involves. All
materials have been developed in direct
collaboration with young people with
experience of service use.
Closing the Gap: Shared
Decision Making in CAMHS
This project attempted to close the
gap between current practice and
the rhetoric of “collaborative working”
and “user participation” in order to
ensure young people become active
participants in their care by developing
and promoting models of shared
decision making (SDM). “Closing the
Gap: Shared Decision Making in CAMHS”
involved a collaboration of service users
and professionals who set out to develop
innovative practice in relation to SDM
across four UK CAMHS (one outreach
centre, two outpatient services, and one
inpatient unit).
Promoting Shared Decision
Making in CAMHS
Shared Decision Making (SDM) is a
transformative approach to ensuring
services implement personalisation
and choice of care and support. This
three year project will develop and
disseminate a range of free resources
and training to child mental health
professionals to help them adopt SDM.
CPRU- Child Health Policy
Research Unit - Policy
Research Unit for Children,
Young People and Families
Commissioned by Department of Health
and launched in January 2011, as one of
seven units funded by the DH to help
provide research based advice to inform
policy funding for up to five years.
EBPU FON/3
The unit is led by Professor Terence
Stephenson of the Royal College of
Paediatrics and Child Health. The
CAMHS EBPU leads the mental health
strand of work within this unit.
Data collection, cleaning and analysing
services for Children IAPT
EBPU Academic Papers
The Following Papers were Recently Published
With Ebpu Staff as Lead Authors
The CAMHS EBPU and CORC together
with independent data storage
company MegaNexus won a DH Tender ‘Uses and abuses of Patient Reported
Measures
(PROMS):
to collect, research and analyse data in Outcome
potential
iatrogenic
impact
of
PROMS
support of CAMH services across UK for
implementation
and
how
it
can
CYP IAPT.
be mitigated’ will be published in
Administration and Policy in Mental
CAMHS Payment by Results
Health and Mental Health Services
Pilot Project (PbR)
Research. In this article Dr Miranda
Wolpert warns that “unless the potential
The aim of this project is to develop a iatrogenic impact of widespread policy
system by which payment for CAMH requirement for use of PROMs… is
services can be determined according recognised and addressed their real
to the amount of clinical resources potential benefits may never be realised.”
used by different types of children and
‘Embedding mental health support in
young people who attend CAMHS,
schools: learning from the Targeted
taking into consideration the kinds of
Mental Health in Schools (TaMHS)
outcomes they achieve. The CAMHS
national evaluation’ will be published
EBPU is one of the partner agencies
in Emotional and Behavioural
(along with the Tavistock and Portman
Difficulties. This paper reports back
NHS Foundation Trust and the South
on the findings from the evaluation of
London and Maudsley NHS Foundation
the TaMHS initiative.
Trust) providing a project team to
take forward the PbR approach in ‘Do patient reported outcome measures
CAMHS. The pilot phase of the project do more harm than good?’ was
is currently underway, involving 22 published as a letter in the BMJ. In the
CAMH services across England. The letter Dr Miranda Wolpert warns “Unless
pilot sites include a wide range of we develop the evidence base on how
services, from Tier 2 to Tier 4 and include to use PROMs in direct clinical work
inpatient and specialist teams (e.g. they may continue to be just one more
Learning Disabilities). Clinicians from bureaucratic burden and may end up
participating services will record certain doing more harm than good.”
information about each case they see
‘What kind of goals do children and
(presenting problems, complexity and
young people set for themselves in
contextual information). They will also
therapy? Developing a goals framework
record all of their clinical activity and
using CORC data’ was published in
patient and clinician rated outcomes for
Child and Family Psychology Review.
each case. This information will be used
The paper uses exploratory thematic
to identify predictors of resource need
analysis to examine the goals data and
in CAMHS and to develop methods for
determine the types of goals children set
‘clustering’ children and young people
at the beginning of therapy in CAMHS.
into needs-based resource groups.
Preliminary findings and implications
are discussed.
BOND – Better Outcomes
New Delivery
This is a collaborative project led
by YoungMinds which reaches its
conclusion at the end of this year.
The aim of this programme has been
to build up the capacity of Voluntary
and Community Sector Organisations
Continues on the next page.
‘Issues in evaluation of psychotherapies’ was published as a chapter in
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for
Children and Families (3rd Edition).
The chapter aims to help frontline CBT
therapists to appreciate the key issues
in the evaluation of psychotherapies,
including a consideration of how best
to undertake routine evaluation of their
own practice.
‘Patient-reported outcomes in child
and adolescent mental health services
(CAMSH): use of idiographic and
standardized measures’ was published
in the Journal of Mental Health. This
paper presents the emerging findings
from both standardized and idiographic
child-, parent- and clinician rated
outcomes in CAMHS and considers their
correlations. The results suggest that
routine outcome monitoring is feasible
and suggest the possibility of using
jointly agreed idiographic measures
alongside particular perspectives on
outcome as part of a PROMs approach.
‘Routine outcomes monitoring as part of
children and young people’s Improving
Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP
IAPT) – improving care or unhelpful
burden?’ was an editorial commentary
published in Child and Adolescent
Mental Health. This brief commentary
article considers the implications of
intensive outcome monitoring which
is central to CYP IAPT in England
and Wales.
‘The Development of a School-Based
Measure of Child Mental Health’ was
published in the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment. This paper
provides the initial validation of a brief
self-report measure for child mental
health suitable for use with children as
young as eight.
Details of all the papers that EBPU staff
members have worked on are available
on our website.
Follow us on Twitter
CAMHS EBPU (@camhs_ebpu) is on
twitter and has over 400 followers. We
have tweeted 109 times.
Follow CORC on @CORCcentral.
Are you CORC member?
NOT YET! - Join today by contacting:
corc@annafreud.org
YES! -Let us know your views about CORC. Go to:
www.surveymonkey.com/s/CORCmembersurvey
September 2013
4/ EBPU FON
(VCSOs) to deliver early intervention
mental health support for children and
young people.
Youth Wellbeing Directory
with ACE-V Quality Standards
ACE-V Quality Standards grew out of
the BOND project. It is an online tool for
service providers and commissioners.
The overarching aims of this directory
and quality assessment tool are to
guide and facilitate funders’ decisionmaking and to provide templates to
enable providers to self-report good
service provision and innovation
across a range of contexts (statutory
services, non-statutory voluntary sector
organisations and private companies).
This national directory will give details
of services aiming to improve the
emotional wellbeing and mental health
of children and young people up to the
age of 25 as well as providing services
and funders the opportunity to consider
services against key quality criteria.
The registration for the directory and
self-assessment is now open. For the
registration form and to learn about
the Early Bird offer, please email:
ace-v@annafreud.org
Child and Adolescent
Mental Health in Schools:
measurement, pupil and school
level effects and relationship
with academic attainment
Praveetha Patalay is working on a PhD
with the EBPU. The first part of her PhD
focuses on further validation of a school
based self-report measure of mental
health for children and adolescents. In
the second part she will be looking at
individual and school level predictors of
mental health and academic attainment,
how these might interact to predict
mental health difficulties over time and
the relationship between mental health
and attainment in a longitudinal sample.
U-PROMISE
The U-PROMISE training scheme has
been developed through collaboration
between CAMHS professionals, service
users and quality improvement experts.
You are encouraged to choose how to
combine five elements of this training
e.g. as three half-day on-site training
September 2013
modules combined with on-going
e-learning support to accommodate
your own needs. Each module is
taught by a team of three trainers: a
clinical expert, a quality improvement
expert and a user participation expert.
Specialist modules are available
for supervisors.
U-PROMISE draws on the learning of the
CAMHS Outcomes Research Consortium
(CORC) (www.corc.uk.net) and the
work in Hertfordshire Partnership NHS
Foundation Trust. It has been refined
through work on the Department
of Health funded project Promoting
Shared Decision Making in CAMHS,
and through learning as part of the CYP
IAPT project.
MSc Training in Evaluation of
Clinical Interventions
Julian Childs is Module Coordinator
for the ‘Evaluating Clinical Practice’
module. This module aims to introduce
students to the importance of
evaluating therapeutic practice and to
introduce them to the different types
of evaluation that are possible and
their relative strengths and weaknesses.
Through attending the course, the aim
is for students to have met all the “core”
CAMHS competencies in relation to
evidence-based practice.
CORC NEWS
The CAMHS Outcomes Research Consortium (CORC)
TheCAMHSOutcomesResearchConsortium
(CORC) is a collaboration between child and
adolescent mental health services (CAMHS)
staff across the UK with the aim of instituting
a common model of routine outcome
evaluation and analysing the data derived.
Over half of all CAMHS staff in England
are now members, with members also in
Scotland, Wales, Norway and Sweden. There
are now over 70 collaborating services
within the consortium.
CORC is delighted to announce that they
have been selected to continue their
work for the Children and Young People’s
Improving Access to Psychological
Therapies (CYP IAPT). CORC will be working
as part of a consortium with CAMHS EBPU
and Meganexus to collate and analyse
the outcomes data from CYP IAPT until
December 2015.
The CORC forums are the best opportunity
for all CORC members to meet, exchange
information and views, plane ahead and
learn from each other.
The last CORC forum was well attended
with around 70 people on the day. The main
topic of the forum was “How can we use
outcomes data to reflect on current practice
and evaluate service improvements?”
Participants had a chance to ask questions
and voice opinions, give suggestions and
share experiences. The programme included
several presentations and discussions led
by members of the central team and the
CORC Committee.
The Implementers Meeting, which took
place last February, included a group
discussion around the relationship
between CORC Snapshot and CORC+, a
presentation by members of the central
team around using outcome information,
a presentation on outcomes for bereaved
children by the Childhood Bereavement
Network and a demonstration of the
COMMIT database by MegaNexus.
The next CORC Members’ Forum is booked
for November 2013. This will be a great
opportunity to meet the new CORC
Programme Lead, Dr Isobel Fleming, who
joined the Central Team in August 2013.
Every year since 2005 CORC (CAMHS
Outcome Research Consortium) opens
the door for new members to join the
Learning Collaboration. We are a community
dedicated to service improvement and we
welcome trusts, services, charities and others
who, like our 70 members, are enthusiastic
about children’s mental health. The CORC
collaboration is open to small charities who
are dedicated to a specialised area of expertise
as well as to large child mental health services
that cover whole counties. CORC analyses
data from those like Childhood Bereavement
Network, ThePlace2be, and counselling in
schools, as well as several children’s hospitals
and NHS Trusts, helping them to compare
their service’s outcomes and offer advice on
the best way forward. CORC collaborate,
innovate, teach and research.
www.corc.uk.net/
EBPU FON/5
LEARNINGS
EBPU MASTERCLASSES
The Three Year DH Funded Project has Concluded With a Report in May 2013
The three years of Department of Health
funding has now finished and the last
set of the CAMHS EBPU Masterclasses
were held in March 2013. The final
Masterclasses promoted excellence in
evidence-based, outcomes informed
practice and user participation in
treatment for child mental health
professionals.
Over the three years the Masterclasses
aimed to develop the skills of
practitioners and managers in terms
of undertaking meaningful local
evaluation, outcomes informed and
evidence based practice and ensuring
appropriate user participation.
EBPU conducted 36 Masterclasses over
three years in London, Birmingham,
Bristol, Manchester, Peterborough
and Durham, with 891 professionals
attending. The Masterclasses were
evaluated using (a) feedback surveys
following each event, (b) questionnaires
on skills and competencies completed
by attendees before each event and 2-9
months later and (c) questionnaires on
skills and competencies of attendees
completed by nominated colleagues
and managers before each event and
2-9 months later.
91% of attendees rated the Masterclasses
as either excellent or good. Broadly,
qualitative responses to the feedback
surveys showed: that attendees felt
the Masterclasses increased their
knowledge and confidence, that the
opportunity to share experiences with
other professionals was useful, and
that attendees intended to implement
learning from the Masterclasses; for
example, “The Masterclass will help me
in making [Shared Decision Making] an
integral part of my practice in CAMHS.”
However, attendees also noted that
the Masterclasses were intensive and
on occasion were experienced as
quite demanding. One feature noted
by many attendees was the open and
fair-handed approach the Masterclasses
adopted to contentious and complex
issues, such as outcome evaluation and
evidence-based practice, and the ways
they supported and encouraged best
practice in challenging times: “These
workshops have made a difference re
whether I left my job or not as I’m very
alone with it all.” “I am thankful to have
had a thinking space at a time when
there is so much change. I am inspired
by the innovative practice and energy
conveyed by staff here - gives me the
strength to carry on working to enable
young people”.
The results of this evaluation suggest
that the Masterclass series had a positive
impact on attendees’ self-efficacy
(as rated by the attendee and their
colleague), meeting the aims of the
project to increase evidence-based
practice, outcomes evaluation and user
involvement in CAMHS.
Feedback from Masterclass attendees
about the three years of Masterclasses
in general includes:
From one of the CORC events
September 2013
6/ EBPU FON
“The training was excellent; a nice “I attended a CAMHS EBPU Master Class facilitated by the right people on the
balance between theory and practice, on participation and involvement and right subject and the fact that they
good video training materials and I have to say it totally transformed my were centrally funded ensured that
fresh presentation.”
thinking, coming from a CAMHS service people could attend. I think it is a real
that always said Service users don’t shame that this programme is coming
“This has been a fantastic programme
want to stay in touch with Services, to an end and will be a huge loss to the
and much needed in the field of Child
they want to get well and move on. development of CAMHS Staff.”
and Adolescent Mental Health. The
It was as if a light bulb went on in my
delivery and support offered on the
“As a commissioner of community
head to realise that you don’t have
training has been first class delivered in
CAMHS I found the CAMHS EBPU
to use Service users to inform Service
a collaborative style. The mix of people
masterclass very valuable. It helped
delivery and development you can use
attending the courses has fantastic,
me to understand the statistical
anyone of a similar age which is what
from commissioners to voluntary staff.
theory behind the data we use from
we have now done and also partly as
The topics have been excellent and very
our provider to monitor outcomes in
a result of attending that session we
relevant to practice. I have found the
mental health. This has been important
now have a dedicated worker working
topic on outcome measures particularly
in helping us interpret the data so that
with and supporting young people in
useful. A massive thank you to your
sensible conclusions are reached.”
improving services from leaflet design
department for holding the events”
to recruitment and selection. Already a “Although I am not using the tools yet,
“I found the Masterclass very useful. strong advocate of Service user/parent/ they will be used in this Trust in the
Having tools to use to help develop care and public involvement attending imminent future, and the teaching and
practice is helpful and time to discuss this workshop fuelled my passion and debates were a brilliant preparation.” ■
and practice, via role -play, the best way gave me lots more ideas and confidence
of communicating with families and on how to do this this bigger and better.
facilitating the expression of their views They were very well coordinated and
and needs”
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT PBR
Facts and Fictions
The CAMHS Evidence Based Practice Unit, together with
the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and the
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust are
now working on PBR in Child Mental Health Pilot Project.
Training in completing the Current View tool has now been
delivered by the pilot project team to individuals at all 22
sites! The team would like to thank all those who attended
the training and contributed to making sure the sessions
were beneficial experiences for all.
FICTIONS
about PbR:
1. The CAMHS pilot project is Payment by Results
2. The PbR is only about money
3. CAMHS PbR is already in place
4. The final clusters have been identified
5. Payment by Results is about paying individual
clinicians based on their performance.
September 2013

FACTS about PbR:
1. The CAMHS pilot/data collection project
in Payment by Results is the first stage
of thinking about how to develop a
system of Payment by Results.
2. The CAMHS pilot/data collection project
is the information gathering stage.
3. The people running CAMHS PbR Pilot
project are CAMHS clinicians and others
who are really interested in getting the
best for children and young people.
4. This project aims to find out genuinely
what resources are needed by which
groups of children, young people and
their families for what outcomes.
5. The CAMHS PbR Pilot/data collection
project learns from other projects such
as Adult Mental Health and is committed
to find authentic solutions for the CAMHS
community and for children and families,
including all the specific issues in CAMHS
that differ from other NHS services.
6. Current View Training has been
completed at all 22 sites participating in
the pilot/ data collection project.
EBPU FON/7
The first submission of PbR data finished
on 15th April 2013 and the second data
submission successfully finished on
15th July 2013.
17 sites taking part in the information
gathering pilot project submitted
data collected on new cases between
January and March. They have returned
their signed ISA to MegaNexus, and
been allocated a Service ID and login for
the CORCNexus Dropbox. Submitting
some dummy data to the CORCNexus
test system is also advised.
FEATURE
CONSISTENT MEASURE
By Miranda Wolpert and Andy Fugard
How many children are seen each year
by NHS child and adolescent mental
health services across England and what
sorts of problems do they want help
with? What sort of help are they offered?
How long are they seen for and how
frequently? What sort of outcomes do
they achieve? How do they experience
the care and help they receive?
There have been increasing calls
for more reliable answers to these
questions from CAMHS across England.
A major reason is ensuring that the
quality of care provided by CAMHS is as
good as it can be. National information
allows comparisons with best-practice
guidelines to ensure that they are
implemented and also that studies in
carefully selected samples of people
who participate in clinical trials still apply
in the complexity of routine practice
when it’s common for children and
young people to have many problems
concurrently. Another important use
of the information is to check that
people receive the same quality of care
no matter where in England they seek
help. The recent Robert Francis’ report
(6 February 2013) of serious failures at
the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation
Trust also highlights the importance of
having and responding to information
on service performance and outcomes.
ONE CAMHS DATA POLICY
Those who have tried to find answers
to these questions at a national level
will have found an imperfect range
of sources for answers. The CAMHS
Mapping initiative which ran from 2007
to 2010 asked NHS Trusts to report on
some of these questions once a year,
but this focused mostly on service
information and number of people seen
and had no information on outcomes or
people’s experience of the services.
The CAMHS Outcomes Research
Consortium
(CORC)
(http://www.
corc.uk.net), a grass roots learning
collaboration of CAMHS across England
which started in 2002 and is still growing,
collects data on outcomes and activity
such as face-to-face appointments
across its members, which include
voluntary and NHS services, but not
all NHS CAMHS are members, with
currently around half participating.
The Children and Young People’s
Improving Access to Psychological
Therapies (CYP IAPT) programme (http://
www.iapt.nhs.uk/cyp-iapt) collects data
on all these key aspects but only covers
the sites involved (providing coverage
for about 1 in 3 of the population).
CORC, along with the CAMHS Evidence
Based Practice Unit (EBPU) and a data
security company, MegaNexus, has been
commissioned to collate this data and
to provide quarterly reports, including
eventually public reports of outcomes.
From April 2013, all NHS-funded
providers of maternity and children’s
services in England will start to routinely
collect data on activity and outcomes
using the first nationally mandated
“Maternity, Child Health and CAMHS
Data Set”.
Information about children and their
progress through services will be
collected and analysed by the NHS
Health and Social Care Information
Centre (HSCIC), the key point of central
data collection for the whole NHS. Every
month data about all the children seen
within each NHS-funded service will
be submitted to the HSCIC who will
produce reports about key aspects of
September 2013
8/ EBPU FON
the care delivered (how many seen, for
how long, with what outcomes) that will
be publically available.
The Child and Maternal Health
Observatory
(ChiMat)
provides
information and intelligence to improve
decision-making for high quality, cost
effective services. It supports policy
makers, commissioners, managers,
regulators, and other health stakeholders
working on children’s, young people’s
and maternal health. With its expertise
in the analysis, interpretation and
application of data in this field, ChiMat
has helped ensure that the information
needed for service planning purposes
is appropriately collected as part of the
development of the dataset.
This is only the start of the journey. The
current CAMHS dataset, one part of the
overall Maternity and Children’s Data
Set, has taken some eight years from
inception to rollout. In this time, ideas
have been refined about what types of
information need to be collected and
what relations need to exist between
them to make informed judgements
and decisions. Information analysts
and researchers have spent many hours
assessing what measures are the best
for monitoring progress and outcomes
of care for all of the varieties of problems
that children, young people, and families
seek help for from CAMHS; complicated
circuit diagrams of how the different
kinds of information such as episodes of
care and event records all wire together;
how data should be coded, validated
and securely transferred and stored.
the data, has a big impact on what
conclusions can safely be drawn. We
know from other national programmes,
such as the adult mental health dataset
(MHMDS, Mental Health Minimum
Dataset) and adult IAPT, that it can
take many years before data is reliable
enough to make public.
The opportunities for providing evidence
of how CAMHS treatment works in the
UK are unparalleled.1 Measures used for
evaluation are also those which have
been shown to be clinically meaningful
as treatment progresses. For instance
the use of “session-by-session” feedback
of the responses children and parents
give to symptom and experience
questionnaires has been shown to
make it easier to detect problems
with treatment progress and to make
changes to the approach used. Since
the same measures are used nationally,
this means information from outcomes
evaluation is not only for audit
purposes, but can be fed back into the
development of clinical tools such as
expected recovery curves showing how
different difficulties and also individuals’
strengths change over time during
treatment. Finally, transparency means
funding can be directed to those areas
where it is needed. There is no better
way to make a case for funding than to
show in detail the good work done and
point to how it can be improved.
Dr Miranda Wolpert, national informatics
lead for Children and Young People
Improving Access to Psychological
Therapies (CYP IAPT), director CAMHS
Outcomes Research Consortium (CORC),
member of CYP Outcomes Forum,
The CYP IAPT dataset is complementary
to the Maternity and Children’s Dataset,
but includes a much wider range of
measures of progress and experience
for children, young people and their
families accessing services. It is hoped
that by 2015 these data items will be
included in future updated versions of
the Maternity and Children’s Dataset, at
which point data collection will become
part of the routine data upload to
the HSCIC.
USEFUL LINKS
FINDING MEANING
Go to http://www.corc.uk.net to see
the latest norms on outcome data from
Data is powerful and because of this it
is open to misinterpretation. The quality
of data, for instance how well it has been
entered and what proportion of people
who use a service are represented in
1
Wolpert, M., Fugard, A. J. B., Deighton,
J., & Görzig, A. (2012). Editorial Commentary: Routine
outcomes monitoring as part of Children and Young People’s
Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP IAPT) –
improving care or unhelpful burden? Child and Adolescent
Mental Health, 17, 129–130.
Dr Andy Fugard, research fellow at
CAMHS EBPU and CORC, member of the
CYP IAPT Outcomes Evaluation Group,
and teacher at the Anna Freud Centre
and UCL.
Colleen Milligan/Netta Hollings/Nick
Bridges/Paul Niblett/Ann York
across CORC members and to learn what
CAMHS across the country are doing to
evaluate outcomes and make use of
them in routine practice.
Go to http://www.iapt.nhs.uk/cyp-iapt
to access the latest CYP IAPT dataset,
public reports on early data from CYP
IAPT trainees and full information about
the CYP IAPT programme.
Go to http://www.chimat.org.uk for easy
access to a wide range of data, tools,
evidence and good practice related to
the health and well-being of children,
young people and expectant mothers■
This article is first published in the Young
Minds Magazine, spring issue 2013.
EVENTS
EBPU Seminars
EBPU is running a most exciting series
of academic seminars. You might be
interested in our next seminar on 18th
September 2013 “The importance of
social connections for educational
attainment: shedding light on ethnic
inequalities using social network
analysis” which is being presented by
Dr Katherine Woolf. Katherine has
been a Lecturer in Medical Education
and an Honorary Lecturer in Psychology
at UCL since 2009.
In this talk Katherine will explain
some of the recent psychological and
educational approaches being taken
to understand and challenge the
widespread problem of academic under-performance in black and minority
ethnic groups, especially doctors.
We have already hosted:
Professor John Raven
Professor Mick Cooper
Anna Lundh
Camilla Parker
Professor Adrian Furnham
Stephen Pilling,
Kim de Jong
Crispin Day and Daniel Michelson
Gwyn Bevan and Mara Airoldi
Sally Anderson, Vaughan Bell,
Gregory Hilton and Dolly Sen
These seminars are held in the Anna
Freud Centre and are free and open to
everyone. More info on:
www.ucl.ac.uk/ebpu/events/
Prepared and designed by Slavi Savic; assisted by Thomas Booker; If you want to comment or to give feedback please email Slavica.Savic@annafreud.org;
If you would like to be on the mailing list please email ebpu@annafreud.org; All other information can be found on our website: www.ucl.ac.uk/EBPU/
September 2013
EBPU FON/9
CAMHS Press Publications
Resources aimed at
Children and Young People
CAMHS Press is the publishing arm of the Evidence Based Practice Unit and is placed at the Anna
Freud Centre, North London. “How to Get up and Go when you’re feeling low” and “I gotta feeling:
Top Tips for Feeling Good” , from our children’s range, were developed as part of the Help4Pupils
project and are designed to help children when they are feeling sad, worried or troubled. Both “I
gotta feeling’ and ‘How to Get up and Go’ have proven popular. So far we’ve sent out over 2000
copies of ‘I Gotta Feeling’ to some 70 schools and related organisations, whilst ‘How to Get up and
Go’ has proven even more popular with over 3000 copies sent out to over 80 schools and related
organisations. All our booklets are free of charge.
i gotta feeling
Top tips For Feeling Good
(aimed at primary school children)
This booklet has been designed
by Help4Pupils to help children
when they are feeling sad,
worried or troubled. It is full
of fun simple tips on what to
do to improve their mood and
maintain emotional wellbeing.
How To Get Up And Go
When You’re Feeling Low
Top tips for feeling good
(aimed at secondary school pupils)
This booklet has been designed
by Help4Pupils to help children
when they are feeling sad,
worried or troubled. It is full
of fun simple tips on what to
do to improve their mood and
maintain emotional wellbeing.
How to order:
All of our booklets are freely available as PDFs on our website. Alternatively,
booklets can be ordered directly by sending an email to ebpu@annafreud.org.
September 2013
CAMHS Press Publications
Resources Aimed At
Professionals
CAMHS Press is the publishing arm of the Evidence Based Practice Unit and is placed at the Anna Freud
Centre, North London. CAMHS Press brings to you the worlds of academic research and mental health
practice, through series of booklets, leaflets and other forms of publications related to mental health in
support of children, young people and mental health practitioners. CAMHS Press publications are free
of charge. CAMHS Press is proud to work with front line practitioners, service users and policy makers to
share knowledge and information and is committed to serve its readership.
W
E
N
Goals and Goal Based outcomes
(gbo’s)
Some useful information
The booklet was written by
Dr Duncan Law, a member
of the CORC Committee and
Board, and offers information
and advice on using Goals
and Goal Based Outcomes.
Current View Tool
Completion Guide
This booklet was developed
by members of CAMHS
EBPU as part of the Payment
by Results in CAMHS Pilot
project. It gives an overview
of the Current View Tool
and provides guidance on
completing the tool.
ebpu log book:
Learning from Experience
A booklet developed by
CAMHS EBPU to help front
line practitioners learn from
their experience. Use the
PDSA forms when you want
to try something new to
improve your practice. Every
time you finish a PDSA cycle
you start a new one trying to
improve what you’ve done
in the previous cycle and it
becomes a learning process.
All of our booklets are freely available as PDFs on our website: www.ucl.ac.uk/ebpu.
Booklets can be ordered directly by sending an email to: ebpu@annafreud.org.