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Improving and transforming children and young people’s (CYP) mental health (MH) services is increasing in importance. Such systems, however, are often delivered across providers and commissioned in different ways which can lead to fragmentation and complexity, ultimately impacting negatively on how young people access services. With increased demand, this means that services are more likely to operate in silos when indeed they should be better integrated. Developing systemic interventions for service leaders and commissioners may support improved integration. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Systemic issues across a CYP MH system were assessed and formulated. As a result, using systemic theory, appreciative inquiry and organisational change theories, a “systemic conversation” intervention was developed and delivered to senior leaders and commissioners of this system. This intervention comprised three workshop style sessions with numerous tasks.

Qualitative feedback and scores in the improvement of important elements that the conversations targeted were collected and examined descriptively. Participants rated their perceived improvement in relationships, transparency, integration, helpfulness and shared vision for future development.

In transforming CYP MH services, this paper considers how the authors can intervene across organisations representing the system to further integrate and improve care for those accessing services.

The intervention described is an original way of intervening with provider representatives from across the system. The paper provides a blueprint of how this might be adopted by others.

Young people can often “fall through the gaps” between Child and Adolescent Mental Health services (CAMHS) and Adult Mental Health services (AMHS). This discursive viewpoint study aims to reflect a conversation among the authors on how CAMHS and AMHS psychiatry came together to develop and embed a UK community “Youth Mental Health Service”.

This reflective viewpoint study explores the perspectives of three of the lead CAMHS and AMHS psychiatrists from the implementation phase of a community youth mental health service. It explores, in a discursive way, these individuals’ views on some of the key facilitators and barriers in the development of the service that aimed to “bridge the gap” for young people.

These clinicians’ reflections recognise the importance of strong clinical leadership in enabling a youth/young adult model of mental health to be implemented. They also recognise how culture internal and external to a service has a key role to play in the success and sustainment of implementing an innovative model. This study describes a merging of CAMHS and AMHS psychiatry to meet the needs of young people in the most developmentally appropriate way.

This reflective study highlights the need for services and systems to think creatively about how they can allow flexibility for CAMHS and AMHS psychiatrists to learn and plan together, as well as gain experiences across the age ranges, to facilitate collaborative working that is developmentally appropriate and meets the needs of young people in a way that is accessible to them.

Whilst there are pockets of excellence in the provision of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), many services fail to meet young people’s needs. Considering this, the purpose of this paper is to ascertain perceptions of CAMHS provision in a rural county of the UK to inform re-design of youth mental health services.

The study comprised of two phases: phase one involved analysis of questionnaire data of youth views of CAMHS. Phase two involved analysis of the “Have Your Say” event data which explored perceptions of CAMHS and future service re-design. Data were thematically analysed.

Knowledge of the existence and purpose of CAMHS was variable. Participants wanted accessible information about services, rights, confidentiality and for this to be provided in multiple media. Young people wanted staff who were easy to talk to, genuine, understanding and who valued their insights. Participants wanted to be offered choice about appointments, location and timing. An ideal mental health service was described as a “one-stop-shop” of co-locality and multi-agency collaboration. Young people clearly expressed a desire to influence the design and delivery of the radical service re-design and to be embedded in its development.

The results highlighted multiple problems with CAMHS provision and provided a clear justification for the re-design of services.

This was a novel approach demonstrating the importance, utility and power of effective participatory practices for informing the re-design of services.

In response to elevated local self-harm and suicide rates, and the lack of a dedicated pathway for children and young people (CYP) who self-harm, a rapid response pathway united to reduce self-harm (RUSH) was developed and implemented within Norwich (Norfolk, England). This public health case study aims to describe the pathway model and share its outcomes, learnings, and reflections over the pilot year.

RUSH was a community-based pilot pathway aiming to support CYP, 11–18 years old, engaging in or at risk of engaging in repeated self-harm and subsequently at risk of repeated attendance at local emergency departments. From May 2020 to April 2021, RUSH supported 61 CYP using funding from NHS England and Improvement.

This case study shares the pathway’s outcomes, through a mixed-method evaluation. Results indicate statistically significant reductions in self-harm frequency (p = 0.01) and anxiety and depression symptomatology (p < 0.001); a statistically significant increase in progress towards goals (p < 0.001); and a general downward trend in re-attendance at local emergency departments following RUSH. Findings also illustrate high service user satisfaction. Framework analysis of focus group data highlights positive experiences with hope for recommissioning from a staff perspective.

This study will be valuable for services looking to develop and implement a similar service provision, in response to the need to tackle self-harm rates as a broader approach to suicide prevention. In light of the NHS long-term plan (2019), it also serves as an example of how to develop and use a strategic co-production group, and work collaboratively with the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors.

This paper aims to examine the barriers and facilitators of conducting and implementing research in frontline child and youth mental health settings in the UK.

Researchers, clinicians and commissioners who attended a workshop at the Big Emerging Minds Summit in October 2022 provided their expert views on the structural barriers and possible solutions to integrating research in clinical practice based on their experiences of child and young people mental health research.

The identified barriers encompass resource constraints, administrative burdens and misalignment of research priorities, necessitating concerted efforts to foster a research-supportive culture. This paper proposes the potential actionable solutions aimed at overcoming challenges, which are likely applicable across various other health-care systems and frontline NHS services. Solutions include ways to bridge the gap between research and practice, changing perceptions of research, inclusive engagement and collaboration, streamlining ethics processes, empowering observational research and tailored communication strategies. Case examples are outlined to substantiate the themes presented and highlight successful research initiatives within NHS Trusts.

This paper provides an insight into the views of stakeholders in child and youth mental health. The themes will hopefully support and influence clinicians and academics to come together to improve the integration of research into clinical practice with the hope of improving service provision and outcomes for our children and young people.

High speed image processing is the basis of a unique 3‐D measurement system developed by British Aerospace and the City University Optical Metrology Centre. The system can produce 3‐D coordinates for over a hundred measured points up to every 1/25th of a second. As a result it can simultaneously measure locations of components during assembly or guide a robot end effector in drilling operations. This work has recently won the 1998 Metrology for World Class Manufacturing Award for Innovative Metrology and a DSP in Action Award for 1998.