It is estimated that 1 in 2 young people who are educated in Alternative Provision (AP) educational settings have social, emotional and mental health difficulties. However, the extent to which the mental health needs of these young people are currently being met by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is less clear. In this…

Professor Neil Humphrey's paper provides a timely, helpful, and compelling opportunity to reflect on the mental wellbeing of children and young people today, in terms of research, policy, and practice. It offers a means of 'taking stock' of what we do and do not know so far in understanding the intersection between education and mental health. In…

Developmental research during COVID-19 suggests that pandemic-related disruptions in family relationships are associated with children's mental health. Most of this research has focused on 1 child per family, thereby obfuscating patterns that are differentially operative at the family-wide (i.e., between-family) versus child-specific (i.e.,…

Background: Approximately one in ten children aged 5-15 in Britain has a conduct, hyperactivity or emotional disorder. Methods: The British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Surveys (BCAMHS) identified children aged 5-15 with a psychiatric disorder, and their use of health, education and social care services. Service costs were estimated for each…

The increase in exposure to sexually explicit material has been cited as a significant factor influencing adolescent sexuality and health. Concern about the negative impact of this material is increasingly prominent within policy, professional groups, and the media. Little research, however, has been conducted within this area. This article…

This study explores adolescents' accounts of self-harm with a view to elucidate the implications for health care practitioners seeking to administer care to teenagers in English. Drawing on a corpus of 1.6 million words from messages posted on a UK-hosted adolescent health Web site, analysis began by identifying a range of keywords relating to…

Two large surveys of children and adolescents in the general British population is used to evaluate the dimensionality of the total difficulties score of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The findings support the use of SDQ as a measure of child mental health.

Mental health problems--and depression in particular--have been rising internationally. The link between poor mental health and poor educational outcomes is particularly interesting in the case of the UK which has a low international ranking both on measures of child wellbeing and the probability of early drop-out from the labour market and…

Background: Obesity prevalence is unusually high among adults with intellectual disability (ID). There is limited and conflicting evidence on obesity prevalence among ambulatory children and adolescents with ID. The present study aimed to estimate obesity prevalence in this group and to compare with population prevalence. Methods: Survey of nine…

Autism has lifetime consequences, with potentially a range of impacts on the health, wellbeing, social integration and quality of life of individuals and families. Many of those impacts are economic. This study estimated the costs of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in the UK. Data on prevalence, level of intellectual disability and place of…

We examined the contribution of socioeconomic position to the health and mental health status of children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities in a sample of 10,438 British children. Intellectual disability was a significant risk factor for poorer general health, OR = 4.5, emotional disorders, OR = 2.0, and conduct disorders, OR = 7.7.…

This article reviews recent research evidence, largely from systematic reviews, on a number of aspects of childhood obesity: its definition and prevalence; consequences; causes and prevention. The basis of the body mass index (BMI) as a means of defining obesity in children and adolescents is discussed: a high BMI for age constitutes obesity. In…

The aim of this study was to relate discharge King's Outcome Scale for Childhood Head Injury (KOSCHI) category to injury severity and detailed outcome measures obtained in the first year post-traumatic brain injury (TBI). We used a prospective cohort study. Eighty-one children with TBI were studied: 29 had severe, 15 moderate, and 37 mild TBI. The…

Recent developments, such as passage of the Children Act 2004, subsequent implementation of "Every Child Matters: Change for Children" and increase in funding to councils for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), the Local Government Association (LGA) asked the NFER to examine the funding mechanisms and priorities in…

A previous project by the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities analysed data that had been collected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 1999 in their survey of the mental health of children and adolescents in Great Britain. The Foundation found that in this nationally representative sample of just over 10,000 children, 39%…