Research collaborations
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Children and Families Policy Research Unit
The NIHR Children and Families Policy Research Unit (CPRU) conducts high-quality research to support the development of evidence-based policy to improve the health and wellbeing of children and families.
CPRU has three research themes: early interventions for children and families, responding to vulnerable children and families and long-term conditions and disability.
Professor Jess Deighton, Director of the Evidence Based Practice Unit, co-leads the early interventions for children and families theme. This theme aims to produce an infrastructure for evaluating early interventions for children and families across the life course.
Child Outcomes Research Consortium
The Child Outcomes Research Consortium (CORC) collects and uses evidence to enable more effective child-centred support, services and systems to improve children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. CORC has 20 years’ experience in bringing together theoretical knowledge on outcome measurement and relating this to the insights and expertise developed by practitioners working with children and young people on the ground.
Since September 2021, CORC is part of the Anna Freud Centre. You can read more about this close collaboration here.
Mental Health Policy Research Unit
The NIHR Mental Health Policy Research Unit (MHPRU) at UCL and King’s College London (KCL) was established in 2017. Its aim is to help the Department of Health and Social Care, and others involved in making nationwide plans for mental health services, to make decisions based on good evidence.
The MHPRU makes expert views and evidence available to policymakers in a timely way and carries out research that is directly useful for policy. It is managed by academics at UCL and KCL in partnership with collaborators from City and Middlesex University, the Centre for Mental Health and the Mental Elf.
Professor Julian Edbrooke-Childs, Deputy Director of the Evidence Based Practice Unit, provides expertise on child and adolescent mental health to the MHPRU and leads a research study on research priorities for the role of screen use in young people’s mental health.
NIHR Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care
National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs) bring together a collaboration of the local providers of NHS services and NHS commissioners, universities, other relevant local organisations and the relevant Academic Health Science Network.
CLAHRCs conduct applied health research across the NHS, and translate research findings into improved outcomes for patients. The 13 NIHR CLAHRCs primarily focus on research targeted at chronic disease and public health interventions.
Within EBPU, we are looking at models of mental health support in schools, including a trial of the ReZone digital platform that helps students refocus when they are feeling agitated or stressed.
Special interest research group: understanding harm from child and youth mental health services
EBPU has launched a research group to explore and develop research on harm from child and youth mental health services. This group has been set up with support from Emerging Minds.
The concept of harm has been kept broad, but can include: harm from diagnosis, treatment, errors at the interfaces of care and harm due to structural issues within healthcare.
Membership is open to all. You can choose which of the group’s activities you are interested in and which meetings you attend. To sign up and find out more, please contact harm@annafreud.org
Special interest research group: youth mental health and racism
EBPU, in partnership with colleagues from the University of Nottingham and the University of Oxford, has launched a special interest research group focusing on youth mental health and racism. This research group has been set up with support from Emerging Minds.
The group aims to support research that improves our understanding of the impact of racism on young people’s mental health. Our goal is to bring together young people, community organisations, researchers and policymakers to foster research in the area, improve our understanding and create change for young people.
We are particularly keen to involve young people in the group, and to ensure their voices have an impact on the research being conducted.
Please get in touch at CORC@annafreud.org to share your ideas, learn more about the research group, or to get involved.
THRIVE Framework
The THRIVE Framework for system change (Wolpert et al., 2019) is an integrated, person-centred and needs-led approach to delivering mental health services for children, young people and their families that was developed by a collaboration of authors from the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and the Anna Freud Centre.
The THRIVE Framework provides a set of principles for creating coherent and resource-efficient communities of mental health and wellbeing support for children, young people and families. It aims to talk about mental health and mental health wellbeing help and support in a common language that everyone understands. The Framework is needs-led which means that mental health needs are defined by the children, young people and their families, alongside professionals, through shared decision making. Needs are not based on severity, diagnosis or care pathways.
The THRIVE Framework thinks about the mental health and wellbeing needs of children, young people and families through five needs based groupings: Getting Advice and Signposting, Getting Help, Getting More Help, and Getting Risk Support. Emphasis is placed on the prevention and promotion of mental health and wellbeing across the whole population. Children, young people and their families are empowered through active involvement in decisions about their care, which is fundamental to the approach.