Children and Young People

  • Psychotherapist focusing on a teenager with personal struggles and hormonal shifts in therapy session. Expert listening attentively, providing support for mental and social issues.

    Safeguarding & Suicide Risk in CAMHS: Assessing and Managing Risk in Children and Young People

    This set of talks explores updated best practice in suicide prevention within CAMHS, highlighting a shift toward personalised, collaborative safety assessment, formulation, and management following new 2025 national guidance. It also examines suicidality in autism, multiagency learning from recent cases, and broader safeguarding approaches including child exploitation and forensic CAMHS perspectives.

    Event type
    Introductory and Update Session
    Read more
  • Reflections from the room

    EBSA in young people: complexity, pressure, and the value of slowing down

    When a child stops going to school, the wish to help them back quickly is easy to understand. Emotionally based school avoidance rarely has a single cause, though, and the pace of a response can matter as much as its content. One thought runs through what follows: that slowing down can sometimes do more for a child than any effort to hurry a return.

    Read more
  • Yan Li and Christian Hakulinen

    Mental Health and School Achievement: Why Gender and Age at Onset Matter

    Discover how mental health conditions impact school performance in children and adolescents. Explore research on over 837,000 young people, highlighting the effects of anxiety, depression, gender differences, and age of onset on academic achievement—and why early support matters.

    Read more
  • Portrait of little girl aged 5. Moody and confused girl. Mistreated child.

    Why Trauma-Focused CBT Isn’t Reaching Children

    Trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (TF-CBT) is one of the best-supported psychological treatments for children and adolescents with post-traumatic stress symptoms. Yet the existence of an evidence-based treatment does not mean that children and families can access it in routine care. Blog by Professor Francisco Musich.

    Read more
  • very sad boy. offended a child. close up portrait looking at the camera. feels lonely misses parents. freedom Ukraine

    Assessing and Treating PTSD in Young Children 

    Learn how PTSD appears in young children, why it’s often missed, and how PTSD-YC criteria and CBT-3M improve early identification and treatment. Blog by Professor Francisco Musich.

    Read more
  • dark haired boy swinging on a swing

    Trauma in Care Experienced Children: Improving Access to Trauma-Informed Care

    Care experienced children and young people are much more likely to experience trauma and trauma-related mental health difficulties than their peers. Yet many do not receive timely support or access to treatments that are backed by evidence. Recent research highlights that the challenge is not simply identifying distress but ensuring that care-experienced children can access effective interventions, particularly trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapies (TF-CBTs). In this blog, we explore these barriers, as well as what effective trauma-informed care could look like. Blog by Professor Francisco Musich.

    Read more
  • Reflections from the room

    Relational trauma: looking beyond the child

    When a child has been affected by relational trauma, it might be easy to assume that the child is the one who needs to be treated. But in practice, working with the child matters just as much as working with the adults who care for them and with the everyday relationships the child lives inside. That second part seems to be the one most easily overlooked.

    Read more
  • Meng Chuan Lai

    Autism: Camouflaging and Masking (Impression Management) — Evidence and Clinical Implications

    Explore the latest evidence on camouflaging and masking in autism (also known as Impression Management), including developmental considerations, clinical debates, and implications for assessment and support. Led by expert Associate Professor Dr. Meng-Chuan Lai.

    Event type
    Advanced session
    Location
    Online
    Read more
  • Autism concept. Lonely little boy covering his ears outdoors 1

    Trauma and Autism: How It Affects Children and Young People

    Autistic children and young people are more likely to experience adversity and traumatic events than their non-autistic peers. Yet, trauma is often missed in autism. Why? Professor Francisco Musich explains.

    Read more
  • Alessio Bellato 1

    Meet the expert: Emotion Regulation with Dr. Alessio Bellato

    In November, ACAMH will host a two-part short course Assessment Tools and Interventions for Emotion (Dys)Regulation: Practical Approaches. We caught up with the course leader – Dr. Alessio Bellato, Lecturer in Children and Young People’s Mental Health at the University of Southampton – about the topic itself, his career, and his hopes for the event.

    Read more