MyVoice: A children's social care randomised controlled trial testing a comprehensive mental health assessment for young people in care
Mental health of children and young people in care
Participants will complete a baseline assessment and then be randomised to receive the assessment or continue with usual care. Those randomised to the intervention arm will receive a link to complete the online mental health assessment pack. Once this has been completed a report will be generated which will be shared with their caregiver, social worker, GP and young person in care (if they agreed to this). There is then a 6- and 12-month follow-up, with an additional service-facing follow-up 2-months following baseline to explore any initial referral decisions. Participants randomised to the control arm will be automatically notified after randomisation by email or text, or by a contact from a member of the research team. Participants in the control arm will continue to receive usual care from their local authority and any other services already involved in their support. This means there will be no additional mental health assessment conducted by the research team and no research-generated report shared with professionals. However, they will still be invited to take part in the study’s 6 and 12-month follow-up outcome questionnaires as well as the 2-month social care check in. Following participant consent, confirmation of eligibility and completion of baseline measures the randomisation procedure will be carried out. Randomisation will be undertaken by the research team, using the randomisation function built into the REDCap database. Participants will be individually randomised in a 1:1 ratio to either the intervention arm (comprehensive assessment plus an individualised report) or the comparison (usual care) arm, with randomisation stratified by age group (11–13 years; 14–17 years) and by local authority.
Local authority eligibility: The MyVoice Study is being conducted within local authority children’s services teams across England. We will work with at least 8 local authorities. Inclusion criteria for young people: • Young person under local authority care aged 10–17 years, where their social workers have flagged concerns for the young person's mental health. This could be concern because of scoring highly on the SDQ but could also just be their perceived concern or concern expressed by the carer or young person. • Adequate English skills and intellectual capacity to complete the questionnaires and the comprehensive mental health assessment if randomised to the intervention arm. • Young people in care can be in any type of placement, except youth offending institutes or living at home with birth parents at the point of recruitment. Young people in care can participate without a caregiver but not vice versa. This is important as some of the older young people are likely to not have a consistent caregiver or might be in semi-independent living. Inclusion criteria for caregivers: Caregivers are automatically eligible if the young person in their care is eligible to participate. Inclusion criteria for social work staff: Social work staff are eligible to participate in focus groups as part of the process evaluation if they work in participating local authority teams where the comprehensive mental health assessment package has been implemented.
1. Young person is currently receiving direct treatment in CAMHS 2. Young person has intellectual disability at a level that would prevent completion of questionnaires or of mental health assessment 3. Young person has insufficient English language to complete questionnaires and assessment with researcher support (due to assessment format) 4. Young person is held in custodial settings or living at home with birth parents at point of recruitment