The Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry (JCPP) invites manuscripts for a Special Issue entitled ‘Adolescent mental health in a changing world: Understanding processes of risk and protection, vulnerability and resilience’ to be edited by Geertjan Overbeek, Carlo Schuengel, Edmund Sonuga-Barke, and Gonneke Stevens and due for publication in October 2024 (Published online in September 2024).
Adolescence is a period of rapid biological change and developmental transition providing both opportunities for personal growth and role exploration as well as new challenges. It is well established as a period of particular risk for mental health problems. Research suggests that there has been a secular increase in such problems over recent years leading some to talk of a ‘crisis’ in adolescent mental health. Attempts to understand and address this have often focused on the impact of changes in social and cultural aspects of young people’s lives. These have included things like changing patterns of family and peer relationships, the impact of the digital revolution, issues of diversity and inequality and achievement pressures.
Our 2024 Special Issue, ‘Adolescent mental health in a changing world: Understanding processes of risk and protection, vulnerability and resilience’, will attempt to better understand how young people’s mental health is being impacted by such factors. We are therefore inviting expressions of interest from authors working in the field of adolescent mental health who are in a position to submit high quality papers using methodologically rigorous approaches for consideration for this Special Issue.
Papers could;
- Address any aspect of mental health – including but not limited to depression, anxiety, self-harm, addiction, eating disorders, gender dysphoria as well more general issues of positive well-being and thriving.
- Focus on a broad range of risk, protective, vulnerability and resilience processes, biological and socio-cultural factors, and their interplay, will be considered.
- Employ a range of different methodologies and designs.
- Evaluate intervention or policy initiatives.
Although we expect the majority of papers to include original research systematic reviews and meta-analyses will also be considered. We will consider well-designed, pre-registered studies on important topics even when the results are ‘negative’. Expression of interests that do not have results yet will also be considered on the understanding that they will be available for full submission if selected.
Interested authors should send a letter of intent as a Microsoft Word document via the ACAMH Publications Editorial Office to Hannah Moore with ‘Adolescent mental health in a changing world’ in the subject line by Tuesday 30 May 2023.
The letter should include the following:
- A tentative title.
- A brief description of the proposed submission (up to 500 words) including a clear statement of purpose and methods, including reference to preregistration if any.
- A brief explanation of the unique contribution made by the proposed manuscript (under 100 words).
- Names of envisaged co-authors.
- Contact information for the corresponding author.
The editors will review all letters and invite shortlisted authors to submit full manuscripts. The editors will contact all authors by no later than Monday 26 June 2023 to inform them on whether or not they have been invited to submit a full manuscript. If you do not hear back by this date, please do notify Hannah Moore at the ACAMH Publications Editorial Office. The submission of full manuscripts will be due by no later than Monday 27 November 2023.
Please note that following the letters of intent, all submitted full manuscripts will be subject to the standard author requirements and robust peer review process; final acceptance is not guaranteed. In some instances, some manuscripts may be accepted for publication in normal JCPP issues outside of the Special Issue.
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