MENTAL HEALTH
Dr Deborah McNally, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Programme
Director for the Children and Young People’s IAPT at the Salford Cognitive Therapy Training Centre, shares her excitement with NHE over becoming involved in mental health services for young people.
AS
part of one of only three new col- laboratives in the country, the Sal-
ford Cognitive Therapy Training Centre, based within Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMW), has been awarded over £2.7m to deliver innovative new training to thera- pists working in CAMHS (child and ado- lescent mental health services), and for these services to make the changes neces- sary to make this project a success.
The Department of Health has funded whole-service, NICE recommended train- ing to deliver therapy focused on children from three to eight years old with behav- ioural problems and conduct disorder, and children and teenagers from eight to 18 years with depression or anxiety disorders.
Dr Deborah McNally talked to NHE about the importance of providing specialised therapy for children and young people, and increasing quality engagement between users and the whole-service providers.
She said: “All our courses and programmes are validated by the University of Man- chester; we work in partnership with them. This set-up is really useful as it gives us a lot of flexibility. We are working with our colleagues in the NHS who can support us.”
52 | national health executive Nov/Dec 11
Commenting on the pioneering nature of the collaboration, Dr McNally cited deliv- ery of excellence and a passion for greater access to mental health services to children as reasons for the Centre’s involvement.
She said: “We’ve been providing high qual- ity CBT training to CAMHS professionals since 2006 – we’ve got a proven track re- cord of providing adult programmes and are considered a centre of excellence.”
The wait is finally over
Dr McNally has previous experience lead- ing Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programmes for adults, and is keen for this project to be extended to children and young people.
“I feel passionate about children, young people and their families receiving best evidence-based treatments when they need them. I’ve been waiting for this project to start for years,” she explained.
Both financial motivations and the growing recognition of the importance of the forma- tive years in consequences for society have driven home the need for services focused on young people.
Dr McNally said: “The drive for the adult
IAPT was to help people back to work – it was considered to be financially viable to train people in evidence-based therapies. That would then move people into employ- ment from the benefit system.
“As clinicians we know that lots of anxi- ety difficulties and depression can have a chronic cause, and many of the problems that occur in adulthood actually start in adolescence or childhood.
“In parent training the evidence is massive. If a child has behaviour problems, their parent attending a parenting programme can have such an impact on that child’s whole life. They’re less likely to get into crime and drugs and they’re more likely to do better at school, have a better relation- ship with their parents, have better future relationships, a better job; the consequenc- es are just enormous.”
Whole-service change
The new training will improve the avail- ability of ‘talking therapies’, and takes a novel approach to help change the whole service. This involves children, young peo- ple and families participating much more within their services, creating a system that fully allows self referrals and collects out- come measures in each session.
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