Military conflict and its impact on children

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The webinar will begin by describing real-life experiences of children who are living in or displaced from regions where there is war or conflict today, including hearing from children in Ukraine. The panel will then discuss the mental health problems often experienced by children exposed to wars, and they will highlight how the mental health of these children can be supported (1) by parents at home, (2) by staff in schools, and (3) by clinicians in healthcare settings. These discussions will be informed by the latest research evidence.
This event will be of interest to those supporting children in Ukraine and other areas of conflict, as well as regions where affected families have been displaced to. The session will be in English and we aim to translate the transcript to other languages.

Key things you’ll learn:

  • Practical tips and advice to implement immediately
  • Latest evidence-based research
  • Support and signposting for key information and resources

Talks

  • Professor Dennis Ougrin, ‘Understanding the context’ – describing experiences of children who are living in or displaced from regions where there is war or conflict, focusing on examples from Ukraine
  • Professor Rachel Calam, ‘Support from family members’ – mental health problems seen in these children and how parents/family can support affected children
  • Professor Mina Fazel, ‘Support in schools’ – mental health problems seen in these children at school and how schools can support affected children
  • Professor Andrea Danese, ‘Support from clinicians’ – mental health problems seen in these children in clinical settings and how clinicians can support affected children

Professor Dennis Ougrin is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Co-Director of the Youth Resilience Research Unit at Queen Mary University of London. He is also a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, leading intensive community care services. His main professional interests include the pathophysiology of self-harm in young people, effective interventions for self-harm in young people, and the prevention of borderline personality disorder. He has expertise in several research methodologies, including conducting randomised controlled trials. Professor Ougrin also leads a programme of global mental health studies aimed at developing community mental health services in Ukraine and other Low- and Middle-Income Countries, and previously led the MSc in Child and Adolescent Mental Health at King’s College London. He was also Editor-in-Chief of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, a key clinical journal in child and adolescent psychiatry, psychology and allied disciplines.

Professor Mina Fazel is a Professor of Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Oxford and a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist in the Department of Children’s Psychological Medicine at the Oxford Children’s Hospital. She has been working for two decades on how to improve mental health services for vulnerable and hard to reach populations which has led to an interest in school-based mental health services. She has worked with local CAMHS services to change how they interface with education. She also conducts the OxWell Student Survey which in 2021 had responses from over 30,000 students from 180 schools, guiding our understanding of what school-aged students say they want and need. Her other main interest is in improving access to evidence-based trauma therapies, especially for young people suffering from PTSD, having worked with refugee populations for many years. In her clinical work, she is part of a team helping children and young people with chronic health difficulties and pain.

Rachel CalamPhD MClinPsychol is Professor Emerita, Division of Psychology and Mental Health, School of Health Sciences, The University of Manchester, UK. She was programme director for the doctorate in clinical psychology at Manchester before becoming Head of the School of Psychological Sciences there. Her research focus has been on prevention approaches to protecting the mental health of children and families. She has a particular interest in developing and evaluating parenting and family skills resources for low and middle income countries and very low resource contexts. She acts as a consultant and technical expert with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime prevention group on parenting and family skills in different contexts. In this context, she has worked with a group who have developed new programmes which are now in use in many countries worldwide. She has worked most recently on parenting and intervention needs of children, young people and families who are in war, displacement and resettlement contexts, using novel, low cost ways of sharing information, for example distributing brief written material via bread supplies into conflict zones. She has worked with other groups internationally on different ways of combining caregiver and family skills with trauma recovery approaches for children and young people across these settings.

Professor Andrea Danese is Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, UK. The research from his team focuses on childhood trauma, and he has published widely on the consequences of childhood trauma, the mechanisms through which childhood trauma affects health, and prevention and treatment of trauma-related psychopathology. Professor Danese is also Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist of the National & Specialist CAMHS Trauma, Anxiety, and Depression Clinic at the Maudsley Hospital, London, UK. He is Academic Secretary for the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Faculty of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, a member of the Evidence Panel at the Early Intervention Foundation, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at NSPCC. He is Editor-at-large of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and on the Editorial Board of several other scientific journals.