Webinar: Supporting children, young people and their families during the...

Remote support toolkit Evidence-based practices for supporting young people's mental health and wellbeing remotely during Covid-19

The toolkit pulls together best practice learning on how to support young people’s mental health and wellbeing remotely in a safe and accessible way. It's been designed to make it easy for you to find the information you need to provide engaging online services at your organisation, whether you have a remote offer that you're looking to strengthen, or are embarking on offering remote support for the first time. Explore the toolkit by selecting a section below, or click here to get started.

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Supporting care-experienced children and young people during the Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath

02 June 2020

"This advice is intended for foster and kinship carers, adoptive parents, and professionals who work with care-experienced children in schools, residential care homes and other settings across the United Kingdom. Terminology is slightly different in the different nations of the UK, and where possible we have tried to reflect this. We have used the term ‘care-experienced’ for all looked after and adopted children and those in kinship or residential care. This guidance has a focus on thinking about care-experienced children and young people particularly in relation to education during the Covid-19 pandemic."


"The Covid-19 pandemic has made us all think about how we work together to support the most vulnerable children in our society. Care-experienced children and young people are some of the most vulnerable and are therefore very much at the forefront of our minds. This period of social isolation, partial school closure, and reduction in social care and therapeutic services has highlighted the vital role schools play in maintaining the health and wellbeing of children as well as providing them with an education. Some schools are closed to students, and only a handful of children are attending, and there is an additional burden on foster and kinship carers, adoptive parents and professionals who support care-experienced children in a range of settings. This paper outlines some of the key challenges care-experienced children, young people and those close to them may want to think about at this time, and then provides advice and resources that may help."


Link to Guidance

My sister’s learning disability and mental illness are not ‘a blessing’

Just what I used to hear from conversations with young siblings of children with disabilities / life limiting illnesses ... the frustration, anger and guilt. 
They deserved and needed particular understanding and to have the space and time to share their feelings. 

"The saddest thing is that she’s aware that she’s different. She knows I have a job, a boyfriend, a car (mainly to be able to drive her around — but that’s no consolation to her), and she doesn’t understand why she can’t have all those things too. We all compare ourselves to the success of our siblings, so imagine having such a large contrast in the opportunities that are presented to you. I have extreme survivor’s guilt — I feel like, by pure chance, I got to be the one who got to have a normal life. And I’ve said out loud a few times that if I could swap places with her, I would. My mum tells me thinking that way doesn’t help anyone — least of all my sister — but we don’t always experience constructive thoughts, do we? And I suppose this gives me a sort of control over my thoughts, and reduces the survivor’s guilt a little bit — knowing I’d be ready to step in at any time."

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"On High Alert: Hyperarousal + ‘losing it’ over nothing"

A powerful read from "Teenage Whisperer" - (abstract)

" .... You can then talk about the stress flashpoint at an appropriate later moment, acknowledging that you noticed I was getting agitated. This is such powerful stuff. If you help me to stay calm, and then later let me know that you noticed this (and this it wasn’t a fluke that you got me to do something to distract me or made me laugh) I will be blown away. Someone that helped me stay calm. Hell, someone that noticed how I was feeling. It then doesn’t take much more to get me to a place where I’ll maybe talk about how I’m feeling and you can help me come up with strategies to help me stay calm and reduce my baseline arousal levels. If you help me meet my immediate basic need (to stay calm) then I will sense your care, and care makes us listen"

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"Parent survey reveals widespread concerns about mental health impact of COVID-19 on young people’s mental health"

Released Thursday 14th May 2020

"YoungMinds is calling for Government action to limit the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and young people’s mental health, as a new survey reveals widespread concerns among parents and carers."

"The charity YoungMinds has today published the results of a survey with more than 1,850 parents and carers, in which respondents expressed worries about the long-term impact of COVID-19 on their children’s mental health, and described the challenges they face in finding support. [1]"

"The results show that:

• 67% of respondents agreed that they are concerned about the long-term impact of the coronavirus on their child’s mental health. This rose to 77% among parents and carers whose children had required mental health support in the previous three months. [2]
• 29% of respondents disagreed that there was enough support (information, helplines and resources) available to help them and their child get through this time. 24% of respondents said that they would not know where to turn for advice and information on supporting their children’s mental health during this time.
• Among respondents whose children had received mental health support in the previous three months (through the NHS, private providers, school counsellors, charities and helplines) 25% said that their child was no longer able to access it, but still needed it.
• 66% of respondents said that the coronavirus had had a negative impact on their own mental health."

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Editorial: Demand avoidance — pathological, extreme or oppositional? Ann Ozsivadjian

"Since its inception in 1980, the term PDA has generated much debate, indeed, arguably few subjects have generated such controversy in the neurodevelopmental literature. However research in the area is moving into more practical arenas, including trying to understand why some children present with problematic demand avoidant behaviour, in order to provide practical support to families. In this special edition of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, data from two studies are presented which begin to look for underlying factors contributing to an anxious need for control. Commentaries then follow, highlighting inherent nosological and methodological difficulties in investigating PDA. In this lively debate, while the controversy continues, some headway is made in terms of understanding why some young people might present with such a rigid and maladaptive response to everyday demands, including an aversion to intolerance of uncertainty leading to controlling behaviour. It will be crucial for both health and education to develop a robust evidence base to understand the driving mechanisms for demand avoidant behaviour, and develop specific strategies for managing what can be very challenging behaviours."

Link to editorial