The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition are delighted to announce four new Steering Group members to help shape and guide our work as we look to the year ahead. We would like to welcome Race Equality Foundation, Parent Infant Foundation, Rollercoaster Family Support and The British Psychological Society (BPS) to the team.

We received a number of high standard applications and selected organisations we felt most closely fit with our criteria and gaps identified with the current Steering Group. These were:

  • The mental health of 0 to 5 year old’s
  • The mental health of Black, Asian and ethnic minority children & young people
  • Addressing mental health inequalities in infant, children & young people’s mental health
  • Working with or representing parents and carers

We are looking forward to receiving their guidance and insights when we start to work with them from January 2021.

 

Race Equality Foundation

What they do:

  • promote race equality in social support and in the provisions of public services.
  • active in producing evidence, developing good practice as well as implementing interventions that improve mental wellbeing.
  • addressing some of the poor policy and practice that have contributed to comparatively poorer experiences and outcomes for black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.

Increasingly this work has focused on improving the support available to children and young people through the evidence-based briefing papers as well as the deployment of interventions such as the Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities Parenting and Children and Young People’s programmes. They would bring these insights, experiences, networks and expertise to the CYPMHC.

Race Equality Foundation have 20 years of experience of working with black, Asian and minority ethnic communities as well as families who experience disadvantage to better support their children and young people based on the Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities parenting programme.

 

Parent-Infant Foundation

What they do:

  • The Parent-Infant Foundation is the sector body for parent-infant relationship teams, also known as infant mental health services.
  • coordinate the ‘parent-infant network’, a collective of the 35+ emerging and existing parent-infant relationship teams around the UK.
  • also lead the ‘First 1001 Days Movement’, which brings together over 160 organisations to drive change by inspiring, supporting, and challenging national and local decision-makers to invest in babies’ emotional wellbeing and development in the first 1001 days.

Parent-Infant Foundation advocates for the provision of mental health services for 0-2 year olds and supports the development and growth of parent-infant teams. They have fantastic relationships across the sector and are able to tap into a big pool of expertise in infant mental health.

 

Rollercoaster Family Support

What they do:

  • Rollercoaster is a support project in the North East of England for parents/carers who are supporting a child or young person with any kind of emotional or mental health problem.
  • Rollercoaster was set up on a voluntary basis, 6 years ago by two parents of young people experiencing mental health problems, in partnership with the Tees, Esk and Wear Valley Trust CAMHS service.
  • The service is now commissioned and focuses on 4 key areas of work: Support groups, digital support, training, and advisory work.

As Rollercoaster Family Support Founder, Wendy Minhinnett has provided leadership and clear direction for its activities and championing/advocating for children, young people and families. She has a large amount of experience which will add great value to the work of the Steering Group

Rollercoaster have been members of the CYPMH Coalition for two years but the opportunity to bring a more prominent parent-carer voice to the Group will help to positively influence our strategic priorities and really make a difference.

 

The British Psychological Society

What they do:

  • BPS is a representative body for psychology and psychologists in the UK.
  • A key workstream for the Society is Children and Young People’s Mental Health (CYPMH).
  • They have relevant expertise that covers the full range of young people’s difficulties and have produced a wide range of policy briefings related to children and young people’s mental health.

The British Psychological Society have significant experience of working in cross sector groups.  Nigel Atter, Policy Advisor, has provided evidence, for example, to the Scottish and Welsh government evidence sessions and House of Lords inquiry meetings.  His portfolio in policy development focuses on children and young people. BPS have proven work across all 4 of our criteria.