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The theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day is “young people and mental health in a changing world”. 

Half of all mental illness begins by the age of 14, but most cases go undetected and untreated. The World Health Organisation's focus is on building mental resilience among young people, to help them cope with the challenges of today’s world. 
 

The Social Care Institute for Excellence has published their findings in relation to Models of care and care pathways to support the mental health and wellbeing of looked after children.

The NIS submitted evidence for five interventions; KEEP, TEND, RESuLT, AdOpt & TFCO.

Feedback across all NIS submissions was largely positive and reflected our commitment to both excellence and evidence in practice.

Mum went from hopeless to in control after MST therapist reinforces skills

As a Multisystemic Therapy (MST) supervisor, I always feel incredibly privileged to meet with families and hear about their experiences working with MST. It fills me with immense pride when I see the work that our therapists undertake with families to help them change their lives.

The focus of this year's Mental health week is stress. Research has shown that two thirds of us experience a mental health problem in our lifetimes, and stress is a key factor in this.

For more information about Mental Health Week, please visit the Mental Health Foundation website.

#MentalHealthWeek 

Mental health in the workplace is the theme of World Mental Health Day 2017. The overall objective is to raise awareness of mental health issues and mobilise efforts in support of better mental health.

The Day provides an opportunity for all stakeholders working on mental health issues to talk about their work, and what more needs to be done to make mental health care a reality for people worldwide.

For more information please visit the WHO website

The Newest NIS Programme:

TEND is the newest of the NIS suite of interventions.  It’s a 12 week video coaching programme for carers and parents with babies and small children (up to 4 years). It focuses upon the carer-infant relationship and is underpinned by social learning theory, theories about maternal sensitivity and recent neurological research on the impact of abuse and neglect.  

Evidence:

This document presents the findings of a call for evidence to develop models of care and care pathways to support the mental health and wellbeing of looked after children.

Young people who have grown up in care are far more likely to die in early adulthood than other young people, Freedom of Information figures reveal.

They show 90 people who left care in England between 2012 and 2016 died in the years when they would have turned 19, 20 or 21.

Care leavers make up 1% of the population at these ages, but make up around 7% of the deaths.

Please visit the BBC website to read the full article

The Life Chances Fund (LCF) will be open for Expressions of Interest to develop Social Impact Bonds in the themes of early years and young people from 4 January 2017.

The Department of Health and Department for Education have established an Expert Working Group – supported by the Social Care Institute for Excellence - to develop models of care and care pathways to support the mental health and wellbeing of looked after children and care leavers.

You are invited to submit evidence and/or register for a stakeholder event.

Call for evidence

Shaping the future: connecting knowledge and evidence in child welfare practice is the title of the European Scientific Association on Residential & Family Care for Children and Adolescents (EUSARF) Conference 2016.

The main aim of the conference was to stimulate debates and discussions that could transfer sound research findings to practices in child welfare and improve the interventions in the future. Therefore, the design of the conference will try to facilitate participation and open debates, not just by speakers but also by all delegates.

Children’s care homes are too often viewed as an ‘anachronism’ and they are frequently ‘underestimated’, but improvements can still be made, report concluded.

HARRY O'NEILL has won a private school scholarship, volunteered in South Africa and worked in intensive care.

He's far from the stereotype of a troubled child in care - and that's why he's backing a campaign to overturn the stigma holding young people back.

Harry, now 22, first went in to care four days after his 12th birthday.

His mother had been involved in a relationship with an abusive man and his home life had become unsettled.

But for Harry, having a social worker seemed normal so when he was taken into care it came as a huge shock.