Recognising continued development beyond the adolescent years: Clinical child psychology and psychiatry spans early adulthood
May 9, 2025The transition to adult services poses arbitrary and unnecessary challenges to young people.
Read moreWe’re working with young people to develop and test mental health support for those at risk of developing severe mental health conditions due to having adverse childhood experiences.
We know that people who have adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, neglect, and other forms of difficult life events, are more likely to go on to have mental health problems later in life. This might partly be because young people’s natural alarm systems in the body have not had the chance to develop properly because of experiencing a lot of threat early on in life. This can affect how people react to experiences in their day-to-day life later. We are interested in whether types of interventions, such as mindfulness, nature therapy, and exercise, can help people who have had adverse childhood experiences by helping to soothe and repair their internal alarm systems. We hope this could have a longer-term benefit of reducing the development of severe mental health difficulties as people get older.
Young people will be involved in a range of research activities, including co-developing and testing interventions and guiding us on how we can put our research findings into practice. We will work with local community services to understand how they are supporting young people in the local area, and to deliver mental health interventions.
The transition to adult services poses arbitrary and unnecessary challenges to young people.
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