Clinical Psychologists Welcome Lord Layard's Call For More Child Therapists

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 19 May 2009 - 8:00 PST

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The British Psychological Society's Division of Clinical Psychology has welcomed Lord Layard's call for 1,000 more child therapists to be employed by the NHS to improve access to evidence-based psychological interventions for children. Lord Layard devised the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) approach to adult mental health services, and he has now proposed that this approach be extended to services for children and adolescents.

Dr Jenny Taylor, the Chair of the Division, said: 'The introduction of IAPT for adults of working age has transformed social attitudes to mental health difficulties and given evidence-based psychological therapies the prominence they deserve. Although the challenge with children, both of identifying the right therapies and demonstrating the resultant social and economic gains will be greater, we very much want to support this initiative and see it through to fruition.'

In a letter to Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Dr Taylor made the following points:

- Clinical and other applied psychologists are ideally placed to fill and develop roles as trainers, supervisors and therapists working with those children and adolescents with the most complex problems;

- Training for new therapists should not concentrate on one therapy but equip them to deliver between a range of evidence-based approaches under supervision;

- The element of the programme aimed at strengthening the evidence base should capitalise on the often underused high level research skills of existing staff such as applied psychologists;

- As happened with the IAPT programme for adults, pilot sites should receive central funding so that the potential of this model in services for children and adolescents can be explored.

Source
British Psychological Society