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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Ruth McGovernORCiD, Ben Artis, Dr Hayley AldersonORCiD, Tim Diggle, Dr Raghu Lingam, Dr Paul McArdle, Professor Judith Rankin, Professor Eileen KanerORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s) 2024. Background: Children and young people (CYP) in contact with child welfare services are at high risk of developing mental health problems. There is a paucity of evidenced-based preventative interventions provided to this population. Objective: This project worked in partnership with CYP, their parents/caregivers and the professionals who support them to co-produce a preventative mental health intervention for CYP in contact with child welfare services. Participants and setting: We recruited a purposive sample of CYP in contact with child welfare services (n = 23), parents/caregivers (n = 18) and practitioners working within child welfare services and mental health services (n = 25) from the North East of England and convened co-production workshops (n = 4). Methods: This project followed the established principles for intervention development, applying the six steps to quality intervention development (6SQUID) approach. The mixed method research consisted of four work packages with continuous engagement of stakeholders throughout the project. These were: a systematic review of reviews; focus groups with practitioners; interviews with parents/caregivers and CYP; co-production workshops. Results: We identified that the primary risk factor affecting CYP in contact with child welfare services is the experience of childhood adversity. The quality of relationships that the CYP experiences with both their parent/caregivers and the professionals involved in their care are considered to be the main factors amenable to change. Conclusions: We found that a trauma-informed, activity-based intervention with an embedded family-focused component provided to CYP who have experienced adversity is most likely to prevent mental health problems in those in contact with child welfare services.
Author(s): McGovern R, Balogun-Katung A, Artis B, Alderson H, Brown E, Diggle T, Lingam R, McArdle P, Rankin J, Thomason P, Kaner E
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: BMC Public Health
Year: 2024
Volume: 24
Online publication date: 21/08/2024
Acceptance date: 12/08/2024
Date deposited: 03/09/2024
ISSN (electronic): 1471-2458
Publisher: BioMed Central Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19770-6
DOI: 10.1186/s12889-024-19770-6
Data Access Statement: The research team do not have ethical approval to share data.
PubMed id: 39169316
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