Funding boost to improve mental health outcomes
Support from The Paul Foundation is helping families to access effective treatment for common mental health problems when they first need it.
A gift of £785,433 from The Paul Foundation is enabling Oxford researchers to improve the mental health of children, young people and families through the development and widespread implementation of effective and accessible digitally delivered psychological therapies.
An NHS survey in 2021 found that one in six children and young people had a probable mental health problem, an increase from one in nine in 2017. The most common mental health problems are anxiety disorders and, while there is strong evidence supporting the efficacy of psychological therapies, ensuring that those who are most in need are able to access them is a particular challenge.
The Paul Foundation’s support will allow Cathy Creswell, Professor of Developmental Clinical Psychology, and her team to expand the reach and further develop their Online Support and Intervention for Child Anxiety (OSI) programme for children aged 5 to 12. Work led by Dr Eleanor Leigh will also develop a training package for clinicians to deliver the team’s Online Social Anxiety Cognitive Therapy for Adolescents (OSCA), which is tailored to those aged 11 to 18.
Both OSI and OSCA are being delivered in partnership with child and adolescent mental health services, as well as the schools-based mental health support teams that have recently been established by the UK government. Developing these early interventions, and increasing access to them, will ultimately improve mental health outcomes for children and young people. In doing so, there will be significant benefits to society more broadly.
This important gift is seen as the first step in establishing a longer-term partnership between The Paul Foundation and Oxford. A major focus of this will be the identification of strengths among neurodiverse children and young people, and the adoption of a strength-based approach to the adaptation and development of interventions for mental health difficulties.
Professor Creswell said: ‘We are delighted to have received this generous gift from The Paul Foundation, whose support is enabling us to make sure families can access effective treatments for common mental health problems when they first need it, and are also very excited by the longer-term partnerships that we are discussing with the foundation.’
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