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NHS Education for Scotland

A skilled and sustainable workforce for a healthier Scotland

Better Early Intervention for Children and Young People’s Mental Health

Better Early Intervention for Children and Young People’s Mental Health

Better Early Intervention for Children and Young People’s Mental Health

A new ‘Early Intervention Framework’ should help staff across Scotland make better informed decisions around children and young people’s mental health and well-being.

This web-based resource enables staff across sectors throughout Scotland to make fully informed investment decisions about early intervention or prevention approaches, and how such potential approaches align with their local contexts. It should help them to be methodical and effective in their service commissioning and provision.

Developed by the NES Psychology team, the Early Intervention Framework for Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing includes:

  • A searchable database of evidence-based mental health and wellbeing interventions for children and young people (from the antenatal period- 18 years)
  • Comprehensive information for each intervention included in the database across six key dimensions of implementation
  • Guided questioning to support critical thinking and decision making regarding selecting and implementing interventions
  • A self-assessment tool to enable consideration and evaluation of unique local implementation contexts
  • A rating system for the six implementation dimensions with prepopulated scores for Programme Indicators (Usability, Supports, Evidence) and the ability for the user to self-rate the Implementing Site Indicators (Fit, Capacity, Need) based on their local context
  • A tool to allow comparison of the ratings of each of the six dimensions of implementation across different programmes
  • Tools and materials to support selection and implementation of an intervention

The Framework has been launched with an accompanying webinar, which is available via the Early Intervention Framework for Children and Young People's Mental Health and Wellbeing website.

For more information, please contact our Psychology team


April, 14 2021