What you need to know to ensure your services are evidence-informed and how to make use of the NICE guidelines.
Shaping Futures Together: Empowering decision-makers to build evidence-informed mental health provision for children in care
The resources on this page are designed for professionals responsible for funding, commissioning, and leading mental health services for care-experienced young people, including children in care. They have been developed from research and feedback within children’s social care and mental health systems primarily in England. Nevertheless, we hope the principles explored here, such as collaborative working and service improvement, will be relevant to all UK areas seeking to enhance mental health provision for care-experienced young people.
Research shows that, although care-experienced young people often have significant mental health needs, they do not always receive the same high-quality mental health support as other children.
Featured below are videos and downloadable handouts to support evidence-informed learning and promote a collaborative, evidence-driven approach to developing mental health services for these young people.
Much of these resources reflect on improving provision for children and young people in the care system, but are also applicable to care-experienced young people more broadly.
Resources
These resources draw on many years of research and experience from leading experts and have been shaped by those with lived experience and frontline professionals. We extend our thanks to the 120 commissioners, decision-makers, and leaders from across the NHS and children’s social care who contributed to the development of these resources. We are extremely grateful for their time and insights.
A very special thanks to Tobi, Kim, Finch, and Alani for lending their thoughtful expertise and time to the project. We could not have done this without you. Our gratitude also goes to Hajera Sheikh, Paul Tilsley, Gemma Shannon, Emma Morgan, Ian Lewis, Emma Hughes and Council members Rebecca Regler (Expert by Experience) and Dr Sandra Ferguson (NHS Education for Scotland) for their invaluable contributions.
This work was made possible by funding from the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration network (ARCs), including ARC: North Thames; West; South Peninsula; and North East and North Cumbria. The views expressed in these resources do not necessarily reflect the views of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.