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CPRU Core Projects starting in 2024
- Core Project 1. Young adolescent carers: recognition and support
Team: Dr Jenny Woodman, Dr Claire Powell, Dr Louise McGrath-Lone, Christine Farquharson, Dr Ruth McGovern
Dates: January 2024 - June 2026
Background
In England about 20% of young people are caring for an unwell family member and around 7% of children are reported to have high levels of caring responsibilities. When caring affects a young person’s health, wellbeing or education, this meets the statutory definition of a ‘young carer’, and means the young person is entitled to support. Research tells us that young carers have poorer physical and mental health than their peers but also might not want to ask for help because the label of ‘young carer’ can be seen as stigmatising. Although health services and schools have a duty to help to identify young carers, surveys suggest that many, if not most, young carers are not known to services.
Aims and objectives
Our project aims:
1) to count and describe children aged under 18 years who have been identified as a young carer in their education, social care or health records, and make comparisons across different areas and types of data;
2) to explore how health, education and children’s social care professionals in England see their role for young carers, both those who have been identified and those who have not;
3) to understand the views of young people with caring responsibilities and parents on the roles of different professionals and how their caring status is flagged in their records.
Methods
This project is a mixed-methods study, meaning we will be doing quantitative research analysing health records data and qualitative research (interviews with people with lived experience and service providers e.g., GPs, school nurses, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) staff). We will work with young people from Young Carers charities to develop interview questions and analyse the findings.
Policy relevance & dissemination
Ours is the first study to take a system-level view and look at recognition and response (including recording) of Young Carers across health, education, and children’s social care in England. We will regularly check in with our policy colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care, with our parent panel and children and young people’s panel and publish findings in academic journals and non-academic formats.
- Core Project 2. Access to services related to adolescent mental health
Team: Dr Dan Lewer, Dr Ruth Blackburn, Professor Jess Deighton, Dr Johnny Downs, Professor John Wright
Dates: January 2024 - June 2026
Background
Up to one in five teenagers experience mental health problems, and some young people are at greater risk than others. Those from poorer families and certain ethnic groups are more affected. Furthermore, some research suggests that access to mental health services can be worse for young people from a minority ethnic background, but more research is needed to understand if this true, the role of poverty, and the possible reasons.
Aims and objectives
Our aim is to understand whether mental health services are more accessible for some teenagers than others. The objectives of the research are to:
(1) describe how many teenagers from different parts of the population are using mental health services
(2) test whether usage of mental health services appears fair across the population
(3) make local and national recommendations to promote earlier intervention, particularly for groups of young people who are currently more likely to access care in a crisis.
Methods
We will use local (Bradford) and national (ECHILD) data to assess inequalities in access to services for teenagers with mental health needs. The research will follow three stages:
(1) We will estimate how many teenagers use mental health-related services, and how this differs according to ethnicity and family wealth/background. We are particularly interested in whether young people seek help at an early stage, for example from a GP, or if they seek help in a crisis, for example in the Emergency Department.
(2) Within Bradford, we will compare mental health support to surveys of mental health among teenagers to test whether provision and access to mental health is fair. For example, if we find that certain groups of teenagers are likely to experience mental health problems but are unlikely to receive treatment or support from the NHS, that might be considered unfair.
(3) We will combine our findings to identify which groups of young people mostly urgently need earlier access to mental health services, and make recommendations for how local and national services can identify and better support these groups.
Policy relevance & dissemination
This project aims to guide strategies for improving access and targeting of mental health-related services by identifying which groups of young people with mental health needs access services in crisis, or do not access services at all. In addition, the project aims to identify which factors enable earlier access to mental health-related services. The project will also develop approaches for using local and regional data to understand differences in mental health needs and service use.
- Core Project 3. Health, education and social care utilisation and costs across the life course for children with additional or high needs
Team: Professor Matt Sutton, Professor Ruth Gilbert, Christine Farquharson, Dr Shing Lau, Dr Louise McGrath-Lone, Professor Jess Deighton, Professor Johnny Downs
Dates: January 2024 - June 2026
Background
Healthcare, education and social care services support healthy, safe development of children into adulthood. Use and costs of these services are concentrated among certain children, such as those with complex health conditions, who need to use these services much more than their peers. We call this additional or high needs. Government policy is to join up services within integrated care systems, but there is a lack of research on provision of healthcare, education, and social care services for children with additional or high needs and how much services complement each other across the child life course and how patterns of services vary across England. We also want to find out whether early investment in proactive support, such as day care or special educational needs support, might prevent later problems and be better for families.
Aims and objectives
This project aims to:
(1) count how much contacts with services cost for each child in England across from birth to age 24 across health, social care, and special educational needs. We will find out how patterns of costs vary across England and which groups of children account for most costs,
(2) identify opportunities for these sectors to collaborate and develop relationships that will support children and young people’s health and care through more joined up services and earlier intervention.
Methods
We will be using the ECHILD database -a database containing anonymous administrative data from hospital, education and social care services for all children in England. We will measure the combined costs of these services across childhood to identify which groups of children have high use and costs. Findings could indicate where more joined up services might improve outcomes for children without increasing costs. We also explore how service use and costs in the three sectors vary across the 42 integrated care systems in England, and how costs have changed among early and late adopters of integrated care systems. We will also find out if areas with higher rates of proactive services early in childhood have lower rates of emergency care at older ages.
Policy relevance & dissemination
This project will inform the development of Integrated Care Systems and Partnerships across England by generating evidence across public service sectors for children and young people. Parents and young people say that education, health and social care should be interlinked. However, they report experiences of disconnected services that parents need to spend a lot of time navigating.
Our Research Team
- Co-Directors
Professor Ruth Gilbert
Co-Director (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health)
Core Project 3. Health, education and social care utilisation and costs across the life course for children with high needs (Lead)Dr Jenny Woodman
Co-Director (UCL Institute of Education)
Core project 1. Young adolescent carers: Identification and support (Lead)
- Co-Investigators
Professor Jane Barlow
Co-Investigator (University of Oxford)Professor Jess Deighton
Co-Investigator (Anna Freud Centre)Dr Johnny Downs
Co-Investigator (King’s College London)Kate Evans-Jones
Co-Investigator & Lay RepresentativeChristine Farquharson
Co-Investigator (Institute for Fiscal Studies)
Core project 1: Young adolescent carers: Identification and supportProfessor Gene Feder
Co-Investigator (University of Bristol)Professor Simon DeLusignan
Co-Investigator (University of Oxford)Dr Ruth McGovern
Co-Investigator (Newcastle University)
Core project 1: Young adolescent carers: Identification and supportDr Louise Mc Grath-Lone
Head of the ED Resource (Univeristy College London)
Core project 1: Young adolescent carers: Identification and supportDr Claire Powell
Co-Investigator (University College London)
Core project 1: Young adolescent carers: Identification and supportProfessor Matt Sutton
Co-Investigator (University of Manchester)
Core project 3. Health, education and social care utilisation and costs across the life course for children with high needs (Lead)
Professor John Wright
Co-Investigator (Bradford Institute for Health Research)
Core project 2: Access to services related to adolescent mental health (Lead)
- Researchers & Collaborators
Dr Ruth Blackburn
Senior Research Fellow (Univeristy College London)
Core project 2: Access to services related to adolescent mental health (Co-Lead)Dr Cassey Muir
PPIE Researcher (Newcastle Univesity)Dr Linda Wijlaars
Researcher (University College London)Dr Yiu-Shing (Shing) Lau
Researcher (Univeristy of Manchester)
Core project 3. Health, education and social care utilisation and costs across the life course for children with high needsDr Dan Lewer
Public Health Consultant (Bradford Insitute for Health Research)
Core project 2: Access to services related to adolescent mental health (Co-Lead)