Additional CAMHS clinicians able to deliver CBT to Children and Young People

Additional CAMHS clinicians able to deliver CBT to Children and Young People

NES Psychology continues to support Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) practitioners to train in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Children and Young people through courses delivered by the Psychological Therapies Programme at University of Edinburgh.

CBT is one of the most evidence based effective therapies for working directly with children and young people (The Matrix 2023). It is appropriate for CAMHS, where children and young people present with a range of difficulties, from low mood, severe anxiety disorders, neurodivergent presentations with associated mental health problems, trauma, obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD), eating disorders and complex systemic difficulties.

Training more staff in NHS Scotland to effectively deliver this psychological therapy has widened access to children and families who have been referred to CAMHS teams across Scotland.

Since 2015, we have trained 86 children’s services staff in CBT certificate level and 47 children’s services staff have graduated with a postgraduate diploma in CBT.

In the past year, 23 CAMHS clinicians graduated from the University of Edinburgh with either a CBT certificate or CBT diploma qualification. These year long training programmes involve clinicians working directly with children and young people as part of their work in local CAMHS services.

The impact of the training has been evaluated for both clinicians and young people. Clinicians report feeling more skilful and able to offer effective and efficient CBT to the young people, and most importantly, the young people report significant improvements in their mental health as measured by routine clinical outcomes measures.

For more information visit the CAMHS Turas learning site

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