Mental Health Services for children in care before and after COVID-19
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Using national-level linked administrative data to explore prevalence of mental health concerns and characteristics of mental health services received by children in State care in England before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
IRAS ID
282300
Contact name
Dinithi Wijedasa
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bristol
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
JUS/43510, Nuffield Foundation - Welfare
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 8 days
Research summary
Children in care constitute a vulnerable group of children in society. At any given time in England, there are nearly 80,000 children being looked after by the State. The majority of these children are taken into State care due to experiences of severe maltreatment such as abuse or neglect. Research studies indicate that mental health concerns in this vulnerable child population are high with 50% of children in State care having a diagnosable mental health concern, when compared to 12% of children in the general population. Despite this high prevalence of mental health concerns, there is a dearth of knowledge and detail about the characteristics of children in care who are in receipt of mental health services (MHS) in England. There is also no current evidence base on hospital admissions linked to mental illness for children in State care.
The main purpose of this study is to link the national administrative dataset on children in care (SSDA903 data) through the National Pupil Database (NPD) with the national dataset on mental health services (MHSDS), Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) and hospital episode statistics (HES) to establish the number and characteristics of children in care in England who are admitted to hospitals with mental health related concerns; their referrals and access to mental health services; and their pathways in out of mental health services and how these may have been affected by COVID-19.
The ultimate beneficiaries of this research will be children in State care in England. A successful linkage will provide the Department for Education and the NHS a platform to monitor the mental health of children in care over time. The research also has the potential to influence practice directly.REC name
South West - Cornwall & Plymouth Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/SW/0002
Date of REC Opinion
31 Jan 2021
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion