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Seminar series launched to support children and young people’s mental health

2 February 2021

A new seminar series launching 3 February will bring together cutting-edge research from scientists working in different disciplines across UCL, sparking fresh thinking and debate in the area of children and young people’s mental health.

Children Young People's Mental Health logo

The first UCL Catalyst Seminar Series in Children and Young People’s Mental Health event, sponsored by the UCL Neuroscience Domain,will focus on the impact of early adversity on mental health vulnerability. It will feature investigators from three different disciplines: basic neuroscience, developmental cognitive neuroscience, and epidemiology and population health.

Children and young people’s mental health is an area of considerable societal need and has been the focus of a number of recent research council and charity funding initiatives. UCL is at the forefront of leading innovative work in this area. 

Developing mental health problems at a young age can have life-long adverse consequences, affecting emotional and social development, educational achievement and later chances of employment. It is estimated that half of lifetime cases of diagnosable mental health problems begin by the age of 14 and 75% of mental health problems start before the age of 18.

The rate of mental health problems appear to be on the rise among children and young people. In 2020, one in six children aged 5- to 16-years old were identified as having a probable mental disorder, an increase of about 10% from 2017.

Professor Essi Viding from the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, who led the development of this seminar series together with colleagues across UCL, said: “These figures are highly concerning and we urgently need to conduct research that combines insights from multiple disciplines to better understand how mental health problems develop and how we can get better at preventing them.”

“The Catalyst Seminar Series will cover topics that are central to advancing our understanding of children and young people’s mental health and our approaches to prevention and intervention. For example, the first seminar examines the consequences of early adversity on brain development and mental health. We have speakers spanning basic neuroscience animal models, developmental cognitive neuroscience in humans, and population health research.”

Each speaker will give a short talk about their research and will consider how their work would benefit from connecting with scientists from other disciplines. The talks will be followed by a panel discussion and questions. 

“The emergence of mental health problems depends on a number of factors, and no single mechanism sufficiently explains vulnerability. If we want to generate truly innovative research in children and young people’s mental health, we need to think outside the box and solve practical problems of bringing together different research traditions,” added Professor Viding.

The seminar series will support the UCL-wide Mental Health Strategy. Key objectives of the strategy include: supporting interdisciplinary mental health research across the lifespan that advances our understanding of the mechanisms that drive symptom development, across different social, economic and cultural contexts; establishing a clear mental health research community and presence, linked with UCL’s Institute of Mental Health (IoMH); and investing in innovative capacity building programmes to train the next generation of world-class interdisciplinary mental health scientists and research practitioners. Professor Tony David, Director, UCL IoMH commented on the launch of the seminar series: “The IoMH is pleased to partner with the Neurosciences Domain to support this initiative on children and young people’s mental health. The IoMH was created to bring together research and innovation in mental health across the University and its partners, regardless of scientific discipline or departmental affiliation. The Catalyst seminar series is a perfect example of this philosophy. Mental health is such a broad topic that it is necessary to highlight particular areas where expertise can be focussed with the intention of really advancing knowledge and improving the lives of those whose health is under strain. By highlighting young people’s mental health within the IoMH, we will ensure that it does not become a silo but on the contrary continues to inform and be informed by advances across the field”

These sentiments were echoed by Professor Alan Thompson, Dean of the Faculty of Brain Sciences: “UCL’s Mental Health Strategy promises to shape our future direction and raise our profile. The new seminar series forms an important part of the delivery of the Strategy, connecting researchers across parts of UCL that have not always had an opportunity to hear from one another”.

The launch of the first seminar will also coincide with the launch of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health website, featuring up to date news, relevant study programmes and a directory of researchers associated with children and young people’s mental health research at UCL.

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