Monday 18 January sees the launch of a Commission to improve mental healthcare provision for children and young people.

The Commission is sponsored by the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, along with Young Minds and the Children and Young People's Mental Health Coalition.

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in the UK has never been of greater concern and the Commission, which is chaired by Baroness Claire Tyler, will look at what really matters to the children and young people who depend upon the current Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) system.

A value-based approach supports decision making through good process. Employing such an approach, involving the young people themselves and their parents and carers, along with referrers and partner agencies, CAMH service providers, commissioners and managers, the Commission will research and report what is really needed and how to deliver it.

Final recommendations will include:

  • Recommendations for service providers, commissioners and managers on improvements to the current service, based on updated core values
  • Recommendations training requirements for service providers, commissioners and managers
  • Recommendations for the education and training of CAMHS staff
  • Recommendations for key UK health organisations including Department of Health, NHS England and the devolved assemblies' Health Services and Departments of Health

The members of the Commission are drawn from across all sectors and from the different jurisdictions of the UK.

Chair of the Commission, Baroness Claire Tyler said:

"I am delighted to be chairing this important new Commission which will look at how children and young people's mental health services can be both commissioned and delivered in ways which reflect what really matters to everyone involved, most particularly the children and young people themselves.

"A values-based approach in the field of child and adolescent mental health has the potential to change young lives for the better and give them hope for the future."