The 7th National CPD-accredited CAMHS conference, being held at The Royal National Hotel in London on 24 June, will explore ‘how the crisis in children and young people’s mental health services has been compounded by COVID-19 and lockdowns’.
Open Forum Events, the organisers of the event, titled ‘Children & Young People’s Mental Health – New Normal – Same Crisis’, say the programme will ‘identify solutions and the transferable benefits provided by virtual platforms that meet digital natives where they are comfortable’. These include streamlining access to clinicians, as well as benefits to service-providers, including strengthened multidisciplinary working as a result of more regular meetings between teams – ‘that can be carried over to the post-COVID world, both for service-users and professionals’.
The goal will be to ‘develop innovative solutions in tandem with NHS, the third sector, and local government initiatives, providing targeted support to children whose mental health has deteriorated as a result of heightened anxieties, bereavement, and changes in family circumstances such as relationship strain or loss of employment’.
Speakers will include Joe Rafferty, CEO of Mersey Care; Dr Bernadka Dubicka, chair of Child and Adolescent Faculty, Royal College of Psychiatrists; Dr Wendy Sims-Schouten, associate head (Research and Innovation) and reader in Childhood Studies, The University of Portsmouth; Dr Sarah Wynick, head of Psychiatry CAMHS, The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust; Andrew Balfour, consultant clinical psychologist and Adult/Couple psychotherapist, Tavistock Relationships; Megan Highcock project co-ordinator, West Ham United Foundation; Nick Harrop, head of External Affairs, Young Minds, and Hannah Prytherch, clinical psychologist, Adolescent Mental Health Team, East London NHS Foundation Trust.