While research on CYP’s mental health and wellbeing is growing, the interventions available often fail to address the specific needs of schools. Many are too costly to implement, do not align with school priorities, or lack a strong evidence base. This leaves a gap between available research and the practical needs of school communities.

To bridge this gap, the School Mental Health Innovation Network (SMHIN) is being established by the Maudsley Education Consultation Service in collaboration with King’s Maudsley Partnership for Children and Young People, and the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health. This initiative aims to equip schools with tailored, evidence-based interventions and resources that address the specific mental health and wellbeing concerns in their school communities, in a way that is relevant and accessible.

Launching the SMHIN with an interactive workshop

On 11 December 2024, the School Mental Health Innovation Network (SMHIN) launched its first workshop. This event, sponsored by the Maudsley Charity, brought together researchers, clinicians, policymakers, school leaders and young people to discuss ways to improve the mental health and wellbeing (MH&WB) support for young people in South London schools.

The workshop featured presentations from clinicians and researchers about current MH&WB initiatives, as well as from school leads and young people about their concerns and priorities. The day also included poster presentations, panels with key speakers, and roundtable discussions providing participants with an opportunity to delve deeper into key topics, share perspectives, and collaborate on potential solutions. Some of the key themes that emerged from discussions included:

• The importance of collaboration: emphasising the need for a multidisciplinary approach to mental health in schools, bridging the knowledge and experiences of clinicians, researchers and school communities.
• Tailored interventions for school communities: highlighting how schools differ in their needs and capacities, and exploring ways to adapt resources to reflect the diverse cultural, socioeconomic, and regional realities of school communities.
• The impact of social media on young people’s mental health: exploring benefits and challenges, highlighting the need for clearer guidance on how schools and families can navigate these platforms to support students’ wellbeing.

Feedback from the community

Feedback from the workshop was overwhelmingly positive. Many expressed excitement, hope and gratitude for this initiative, highlighting the need for such a network.

Looking towards the future

The SMHIN team, led by Dr Jacqueline Phillips Owen and Professor Craig Morgan, is committed to building on the momentum of this inaugural workshop. Future events will go deeper into specific challenges and expand opportunities for schools to collaborate with researchers and clinicians.

In fostering these collaborations, the SMHIN brings to life the missions of the King’s Maudsley Partnership and the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, as it allows leading researchers, specialist clinicians and school communities to work together, combining their knowledge and expertise to improve the mental health and wellbeing support that’s accessible to young people across London.

Get in touch!

If you have any questions and/or would like to join the SMHIN, please email us at [email protected] and a member of our team will get in contact with you.

Professors Philip Shaw, Gustavo Sudre, and Emily Jones have joined the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, bringing years of expertise with them as King’s, the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Maudsley Charity enter the next exciting stage of the Partnership.

Professor Shaw takes up his position as the new Director of the KMP. He joins King’s from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States and brings with him expertise and experience in ADHD and related disorders. His research focuses on the causes of mental illness and neurodevelopmental conditions in an effort to improve both prevention and intervention.​

Accompanying Professor Shaw from NIH is Professor Gustavo Sudre. Professor Sudre is the Rosetrees Pears Chair of Bioinformatics, Professor of Genomic Neuroimaging and Artificial Intelligence, and provides a unique skill set in prediction and modelling in large-scale datasets which include imaging, genetic, and clinical information, that will be key to the research plans of the Partnership.

Professor Emily Jones joins the KMP from the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, the University of London, in a joint appointment between Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology. Professor Jones will also join the MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders at King’s IoPPN as a new group leader. Her interests centre on understanding the cognitive and neural mechanisms that drive variability in developmental trajectories. She runs several prospective longitudinal studies of neurotypical and neurodivergent neurodevelopment in infants, as well as several large-scale European and Global Health studies of children and adults with neurodevelopmental conditions.

The King’s Maudsley Partnership for Children and Young People is a partnership between the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London, supported by the Maudsley Charity. It is all about clinicians and researchers working more closely together. Its mission is to find new ways to predict, prevent and treat mental health disorders for children and young people and then maximise translation of research and evidence into improved services, locally but also nationally and globally.

The research, published in PLOS ONE, is the first prospective study of its kind, and provides the basis for a comprehensive resource that will allow researchers to investigate the mental health impact of digital technology use in young people.

365 young people aged between 13 and 25 years old who are currently or have recently accessed secondary mental health services were recruited from the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Using innovative study design, co-produced with young people with lived experience, and sourcing data from participants’ electronic health records, smartphones and social media accounts, researchers were able to build an accurate picture of each participant’s behaviour. Participants provided data over the course of 6 months to establish how patterns of social media and smartphone use can be associated with self-harm and mental health.

More than 80% of the participants had self-harmed at least once, and high levels of depression, anxiety, and disturbed sleep were all prevalent. 54% reported using social media after midnight on a weekday, and 59% reported using their smartphones after midnight on a weekday.

Among those studied, nearly a quarter reported using social media for more than 5 hours a day on weekdays and more than 40% used their smartphone above this threshold.

Despite spending excessive amounts of time online and about a third of participants reporting they had recently been the victim of bullying, researchers found that traditional methods of bullying, such as social exclusion, were more common than cyberbullying.

Hannah Kinsey, Head of Training and Service Design at YoungMinds said, “We are hugely proud to be part of this research and the work that has gone into ensuring that young people’s voices are central at every stage of the study. The findings reveal that more needs to be done to stop the harmful impacts of social media on young people, especially those who have already struggled with their mental health.”

Dr Angela Hind, Chief Executive at the Medical Research Foundation, said, “Smartphones and social media are ubiquitous among young people, yet we know little about the impact on their mental health. This research reveals some important insights into how digital technology is being used by young people with lived experience of mental health conditions, and lays the foundation for future studies in this area – which are much-needed. Ultimately, we hope these findings will lead to better support for young people who are struggling with their mental health.

This study was possible thanks to funding from the Medical Research Foundation and the Medical Research Council. This work was also part supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and King’s College London, and the NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) South London.

Cohort profile: The Social media, Smartphone use and Self-harm in Young People (3S-YP) study – a prospective, observational cohort study of young people in contact with mental health services (DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0299059) (Amanda Bye, Ben Carter, Daniel Leightley, Kylee Trevillion, Maria Liakata, Stella Branthonne-Foster, Samantha Cross, Zohra Zenasni, Ewan Carr, Grace Williamson, Alba Vega Viyuela, Rina Dutta) was published in PLOS ONE.

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The research, published in JAMA Psychiatry, analysed studies of both ‘retrospective’ and ‘prospective’ measures of childhood maltreatment, and their association with psychopathology – a collection of symptoms ranging from internalising problems like depression and anxiety to externalising problems such as antisocial behaviour and substance abuse.

Retrospective measures refer to first-person, subjective recollections of childhood events, while prospective measures typically refer to third-person accounts of childhood events, such as from parental testimony or official records.

In a meta-analytic review of 24 studies covering 15,485 individuals, psychopathology was more strongly associated with retrospective measures of childhood maltreatment than prospective measures, suggesting that it is the personal memories of abuse or neglect at a young age and the meanings we attached to them that may contribute to psychopathology later in life.

Child maltreatment encompassed a range of traumatic experiences between birth and the age of 18, including physical, sexual and emotional abuse; or physical or emotional neglect.

Researchers found that the associations between retrospective measures of child maltreatment and psychopathology were particularly strong when the assessment of psychopathology was based on self-reports and focused on emotional disorders such as depression or anxiety.

Furthermore, retrospective reports of emotional abuse showed stronger associations with psychopathology compared to retrospective reports of other types of maltreatment.

Researchers suggest that the findings could have important implications for the treatment of mental health issues that stem from childhood maltreatment. In particular, it highlights the potential role of autobiographical memories of childhood maltreatment, which has not been explored in dominant theories on the outcomes of maltreatment.

The study’s authors note that the associations between retrospective measures of child maltreatment and psychopathology might be inflated, particularly for emotional disorders, due to recall bias. For example, evidence suggests that increases in depressive symptoms over time may lead to small increases in retrospective reports of maltreatment. However, other recent research from the team suggests that recall bias is unlikely to explain the findings, suggesting that individuals’ memories of maltreatment may contribute to the development of psychopathology.

This research was possible thanks to funding from the Wellcome Trust, Mental Health Research UK, Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at South London, Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and the Medical Research Council.

Prospective and Retrospective Measures of Child Maltreatment and their Association With Psychopathology (Jessie R. Baldwin, PhD; Oonagh Coleman, MSc; Emma R. Francis, PhD; Andrea Danese, MD, PhD) (DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.0818) was published in JAMA Psychiatry.

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