Project reports
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Education for Wellbeing
Education for Wellbeing was a large-scale research programme, funded by the Department for Education, involving two randomised control trials. Through Education for Wellbeing, we evaluated a range of mental health and wellbeing interventions being delivered in primary and secondary schools. Our aim was to examine the impact of these approaches on children and young people’s mental health. The programme ran between 2018 and 2024. Across England, 32,655 pupils across 513 schools participated in Education for Wellbeing.
Level Up evaluation report
Funded by the Youth Endowment Fund, we carried out a feasibility and pilot study of Level Up. Level Up is an online intervention delivered by clinicians at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. The online sessions aim to support children in Year 6 and Year 7 (age 10-11) with the transition from primary to secondary school. Level Up aims to help children manage their behaviour, emotions and relationships at home, in school and in the community; build resilience; and be aware of their support systems.
Find out more about the evaluation of Level Up.
This report first provides a summary of the survey responses provided by participants who attended the Talking Mental Health workshops from September to October 2017 or who downloaded the Talking Mental Health resources from September to December 2017.1 We then describe the findings from the qualitative interviews and open-ended survey responses given by participants who attended the workshops or downloaded the resources during this period.
- Talking Mental Health workshop and resources evaluation report
- Talking Mental Health animation and resources
The Talking Mental Health animation was funded by The Wellcome Trust and developed by the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families from a series of workshops. A group of children and young people collaborated with a Creative Research Collective (CRC) of animators, film makers, sound artists, and mental health experts to bring ideas and experiences to life. Additional resources to encourage and support lively, open and realistic conversations about mental health in the classroom were developed to make available to teachers alongside the animation.
The evaluation of this project undertaken by EBPU aimed to understand under what circumstances, by what means, and in what ways can Talking Mental Health help children, parents and teachers talk about mental health. The evaluation was conducted in two stage: Formative Evaluation during the development of the animation and lesson plans; Summative Evaluation to test the completed animation and lesson plans in UK primary schools.
- Talking Mental Health evaluation report
- The Talking Mental Health animation and resources
- The Wellcome Trust
- Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families
In November 2016 CORC published its report, Child- and Parent-reported Outcomes and Experiences from Child and Young People’s Mental Health Services 2011–2015. This considers data from the services involved in the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme (CYP IAPT). It presents the first detailed analysis of this data and CORC is inviting colleagues, mental health practitioners, services and anyone else to join a discussion on the report’s findings.
Between October 2014 and March 2015, the Evidence Based Practice Unit and NHS England undertook a rapid internal audit of CYP IAPT. Case studies were conducted with 12 partnerships, involving analysis of routinely collected data, staff surveys and interviews, and interviews and focus groups with young people and parents involved in CYP IAPT participation groups. The aim of the audit was to explore how far services were along their transformation journey to embedding the CYP IAPT principles.
This three-year Department of Health-funded project set out to develop and disseminate a range of free resources and training to child mental health professionals to help them adopt ‘Shared Decision Making’. These resources were developed, tested and refined with central input from service users. The outputs developed from this were: Promoting Active Choices Together or PACT helped to improve professionals’ attitude toward, confidence in, and frequency of supporting children, young people, and families engage in SDM, and Power Up, a toolkit for young people designed to help them have a voice in how they want support services to work with them.
This is the final report of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Payment System Project, which ran from October 2011 until 30 April 2015. Its purpose is to share the findings of a first attempt to define a classification of children, young people and families seeking mental health support, and the opportunities and challenges this presents.
Such a classification can be used to support a currency-based approach to contracting between commissioners and providers of services to improve the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.
The aim of the Informed Choice project was to create resources to provide more information about mental health services to children and their families to help ensure those using the services make an informed choice about the care they receive and to help young people find out information both before and while they are attending CAMHS appointments.
Voice Collective is Mind in Camden’s London-wide project to support young people (aged 12–18 years) who hear voices. Voice Collective seeks to enable young people, and their families in the Greater London region who hear voices, to improve their life prospects, self-esteem and coping strategies, and reduce their isolation by building capacity in existing services to provide improved information, advice and support.
A response mode report requested by the Department of Health for the Policy Research Unit in the Health of Children, Young People and Families
In light of the requirements of the CYP Health Outcomes Forum, the Department of Health requested the Mental Health Stream of the Policy Research Unit in the Health of Children, Young People and Families (CPRU) conduct a rapid, pragmatic consideration of approaches to defining and measuring mental health and wellbeing in children. A Delphi-style consultative exercise was conducted with a range of experts in the fields of clinical practice, research and service use concerning children and young people with mental health problems.
The central aim of this project was to improve the mental health of children and young people by promoting excellence in evidence base, outcomes-informed practice and user participation in treatment for child mental health professions. This report sets out the findings from the project.
The evaluation of Kidstime was undertaken by the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, with funding from the City Bridge Trust. The purpose was to investigate the Kidstime Workshop experience from the perspective of young service users, their parents, and professionals involved in the referral pathway and workshop delivery. It followed workshops set up and running at Hackney and Camden and Islington in 2010 and 2011. The Kidstime evaluation was carried out using a mixed methods approach.
The Me and My School project was a research project commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF, now the Department for Education, DfE) in 2008 as the national evaluation of the Targeted Mental Health in Schools (TaMHS) programme. The programme formed part of the Government’s wider programme of work developed to improve the psychological wellbeing and mental health of children, young people and their families. The aim was that TaMHS would help schools deliver timely interventions and approaches in response to local need that could help those with mental health problems and those at increased risk of developing them.
A review of measures in the area of children’s psychological well-being and mental health for the Department of Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health.
‘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 shared decision making across four UK child and adolescent mental health services. It 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.