Fifteen-minute consultation on problems in the healthy child: sleep
ABSTRACT
Sleep-related issues are common reasons children present to health professionals. Many factors can adversely affect sleep quality, and there are many associations of inadequate sleep, including behavioural problems, obesity and accidental injury. We review the current evidence, and suggest practical management strategies to promote better sleep, and hopefully, better functioning for child and family alike.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists has a wide range of useful information about young people’s mental health written to support young people, as well as their parents and carers.
The information is written by psychiatrists and young people working together. It includes information on topics such as…
This new report from Best Beginnings, Home Start UK, and the Parent-Infant Foundation reveals the impact of Covid-19 and subsequent measures on those pregnant, giving birth, or at home with a baby or toddler.
Last month, the RCPCH published an interesting report‘Reimagining the future of paediatric care post-COVID-19 – a reflective report of rapid learning‘. The report is the first in a series of reports from the Paediatrics 2014 Project.
“This report, published on 26 June 2020, is the first in a series from the Paediatrics 2040 project that will inform RCPCH’s vision for the future of paediatrics in the UK. We summarise our learning from this period of rapid change, focusing in particular on the elements of new practice that we want to keep and take forwards into the future…
This article was published in the journal ‘Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry’ (June 2020) and may be of interest:
Paediatric medical care for children and young people with eating disorders: Achievements and where to next
Lee D Hudson and Simon Chapman
No other diagnoses epitomise the need for dual consideration of mental and physical health more than eating disorders. Anorexia Nervosa (AN) for example has the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder, and half of deaths are thought to be due to physical complications (Sullivan, 1995). For this reason it is crucial for acute paediatrics and eating disorder teams to work closely over the assessment and management of these disorders, particularly in the early stages when physical risks are often highest.
This is not as easy as it sounds: mental health and physical health teams are often geographical distant from each other, have different ways of working, and may even view and speak of risk in different ways. Despite this, as for many countries, in the United Kingdom (UK), the journey to provide better paediatric care for children and young people (CYP) with eating disorders has been a gradual one, albeit with a number of recent victories. As two paediatricians working with CYP with eating disorders and eating disorder teams in the UK, we summarise the important developments of the past 10 years in the UK, and look to future steps…
To read the full article, click on the link below:
CCCU BSc Child Nursing alumna Kim Cunningham discusses the unique mental health care needs of children, and her experience as a hospital lead for the ‘We Can Talk’ initiative.
I studied paediatric nursing at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) and during my time as a student nurse I came across lots of children and young people with mental illness admitted onto the paediatric ward. Quite often they were just there for a short time, whilst assessed and discharged back to the community. However, sometimes those with more complex mental health needs, their admission stays were for a few days and sometimes weeks, whilst awaiting an inpatient bed.
The We Can Talk website offers training, advice and resources for hospital staff working with children and young people’s mental health
The project has:
Co-produced (with hospital staff, young people and mental health experts) a competency framework in children and young people’s mental health
Developed, piloted and evaluated a co-designed (and co-delivered) one-day training linked to the competencies to improve the knowledge, skills and confidence of any member of staff who sees children and young people in their role (clinical and non-clinical).
These offer brilliant, free, online e-learning that teaches hospital staff how to talk to young people who come in with a mental health crisis.
They are perfect for any doctor or health professional who struggles to know what to say and do with CAMHS patients in ED and the ward.
Take a look, you won’t regret it. It even gives you a Certificate and / or CPD points….
During the interval of a recent concert by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Dr Dickon Bevington, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, gave a thought provoking, and topical talk:
The Importance of Human Contact today, about Mentalization, Attachment and Kindness.
About Dr Dickon Bevington:
Dr Bevington is the Medical Director at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families and a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS FT where he leads CASUS, an outreach service for complex substance using youth. He is also a Fellow of the Cambridge and Peterborough CLARHC, a collaboration based in Cambridge University dedicated to developing leadership and research in health and social care.
Dr Bevington’s consultant career started in adolescent in-patient psychiatry, but he now concentrates on developing and delivering innovative home-based or street-level out-reach interventions for complex, co-morbidly burdened young people who are socially excluded, using mentalization to underpin both the therapeutic and the organisational approach to this work. In this respect, together with Dr Peter Fuggle, he is the co-lead for the Adolescent Mentalization-Based Integrative Treatment (AMBIT) project.
Paediatric Mental Health Association 