Public Funding for The Anna Freud Centre

Coronavirus has reduced access to already scarce resources in children's mental health and social care. The most vulnerable children in the UK are more isolated than ever, and foster/residential carers and adoptive parents have less support to meet the psychological needs of their children, which have often been exacerbated by the pandemic and resulting lockdown. We propose to bring to market a transformative suite of psychological screening, training and support products, born out of clinical expertise and a decade of research and development with Looked After Children. We will pilot and evaluate the new products with over 1000 children across 15 local authorities, in a partnership between a clinician-led small tech business, the Commissioning Alliance of Local Authorities, and Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. We can improve the lives of vulnerable children and their carers whilst making significant cost savings for the public purse. Demonstrating this at scale will spread uptake across the UK and open up international markets. More than £9billion/year is spent on children's social care services in the UK, but very little is known about children's needs or what is effective in improving their outcomes, although it is clear that children who have been in Care do much worse than their peers, with a 50-fold increase in the rates of imprisonment, substance misuse, homelessness, inpatient mental health stays, and their own children being removed into Care. This leads to excess lifetime costs of £2million to the public purse per Care leaver. Despite very high levels of mental health problems amongst Looked After Children, no reliable outcome metrics are used with this population. We have developed an innovative digital tool set (BERRI) to identify the needs of individual children, in terms of their behaviour, emotional-wellbeing, mental health, development, risk to self/others, and ability to form relationships. It is the first properly validated measure able to assess the main psychological risk factors for the child's trajectory, and can provide individualised reports with advice for caregivers. We can then support carers with training and video consultancy, improving care and preventing placement breakdown. The data gathered can be used to advise commissioners about what placements/services are required, and track which are effective. Pilots have shown improved outcomes for vulnerable children, coupled with potential savings of £22,000/week or £1.14million/year in one local authority. Proof of concept at scale has the potential to cause a sea-change in children's social care.

Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 youth mental health services globally were already overstretched and unfunded (WHO\_2018). Mental illness in young people costs the public purse up to £63,878 per person, pa (Suhrcke\_2008). During COVID-19 the need for support has increased, whilst access to support has declined (Young\_Minds\_2020). There is already evidence of increased childhood depression during lockdown ([Bignardi\_2020][0]\_[Cortina\_2020][1]). Since March 20th, engagement on MeeTwo has increased by 30% and high risk posts have increased by 65%. COVID has created multiple co-occurring risk factors that increase the likelihood of mental health difficulties (e.g., parental job loss, marital conflict, bereavement). The aggregation of this risk will only unfold over time so early intervention is crucial [(Wade, 2020)][2]. Early intervention helps prevent young people reaching crisis point and decreases the likelihood of long-term mental ill health in adulthood (RCON 2017). Post COVID-19 it is critical that the UK exploit innovative methods of prevention, intervention and service delivery. MeeTwo is a multi-award winning peer support app for people aged 11-25\. It already supports 35k young people and is featured on the NHS Apps Library. MeeTwo Connect is a new service, launched during lockdown, which enables young people to connect to their school, university or NHS mental health provider from within the app. MeeTwo and MeeTwo Connect are innovative because they provide anytime, anywhere access to multiple interoperable psychological support options. Launched in 2017, the MeeTwo data set is now big enough to provide longitudinal insights into the impact of the pandemic. We urgently need to develop a suite of data reporting tools and undertake independent impact evaluation so that we can fully exploit the value of our data. The integration of Machine Learning and advanced data analytics techniques will improve understanding of youth mental health following COVID-19 and increase our capacity to help users access appropriate services. This project directly addresses the mental health issues arising from COVID-19\. With a better understanding of our data we can identify how COVID-19 has damaged youth mental health and deliver targeted support by issue, location, gender and age. Early intervention for the 37% of young people referred to CAMHS but discharged following assessment would slash CAMHS waiting lists. In 2017/18, 69% of young people referred to CAMHS did not receive treatment within a year (Children's Commissioner 2018). The provision of easily accessible, high quality, evidence based mental help for all young people will reduce the burden on school and university counsellors, CAMHS and IAPT; freeing up counsellors and clinicians to focus on those with greatest need. Data reporting tools developed with this research will make it easier to share data with institutions to inform and improve their services. This 9-month Experimental/Industrial Research project, run in partnership with The Anna Freud Centre and Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust will ensure that MeeTwo Connect is fully equipped to play a leading role in the post COVID-19 recovery. [0]: https://osf.io/v7f3q/ [1]: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/evidence-based-practice-unit/sites/evidence-based-practice-unit/files/coronavirus_emerging_evidence_issue_2.pdf [2]: https://ucl-new-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_elsevier_sdoi_10_1016_j_psychres_2020_113143&context=PC&vid=UCL_VU2&lang=en_US&search_scope=CSCOP_UCL&adaptor=primo_central_multiple_fe&tab=local&query=any,contains,mental%20health%20youth%20covid&offset=0