Early evaluation of the CYP Mental Health Trailblazers
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Early evaluation of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Trailblazer Programme
IRAS ID
270760
Contact name
Jo Ellins
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham, Research Support Group
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 8 months, days
Research summary
The Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Education (DfE) and NHS England are delivering a national programme to improve mental health services for children and young people in educational settings. The programme is being rolled out across five waves of trailblazer sites, with the first involving 25 areas across England. It has three main elements: i) incentivising schools and colleges to identify a senior mental health lead to oversee the approach to mental health; ii) creating Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) to work with clusters of schools and colleges, providing early intervention and supporting preventive approaches; iii) piloting a four week waiting time for access to specialist mental health services (out of scope of the evaluation).
Phase 1 is an early evaluation of the programme. It is anticipated that there will be a second phase which will be a summative assessment of the programme’s longer-term outcomes and impacts, including – if feasible – an economic evaluation.
The study is a collaboration between the Birmingham, RAND and Cambridge Evaluation (BRACE) Centre, and the Policy Innovation and Evaluation Research Unit (PIRU) and combines quantitative and qualitative data collection from all 25 trailblazers with in-depth qualitative insights from six purposively selected case study trailblazers (focusing on one MHST within each case study area). It will seek to describe the early design and implementation work in the first wave of trailblazers, and draw out factors that are critical to progress and early success for ongoing implementation.REC name
N/A
REC reference
N/A