Shining a light on children's mental health

03/01/23 • 38 min

Mental health can be a challenging and sensitive topic. In this podcast, five child health professionals talk about how they are are tackling the issue through advocacy and innovation.

The spring edition of the College’s member magazine Milestones has a special focus on supporting children and young people’s mental health. To mark this, Milestones Editor and Mental Health Lead Dr James Dearden speaks to a number of its contributors. With a wealth of experience between them, they discuss the increase in mental health issues in young people and the role of paediatricians in supporting them.

It's really clear that that we need to involve ourselves in mental health. It's really clear that that's what young people are asking of us... We expect it these days of teachers, GPs, social workers, so we should absolutely expect it of ourselves.

Karen Street, consultant paediatrician and RCPCH Officer for Mental Health

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RCPCH resources for members on supporting child health mental health

Mental health can be a challenging and sensitive topic. In this podcast, five child health professionals talk about how they are are tackling the issue through advocacy and innovation.

Karen Street, consultant paediatrician and RCPCH Officer for Mental Health

Download transcript

RCPCH resources for members on supporting child health mental health

Previous Episode

Child health inequalities part 1 - Talking with families

We know that children living in poverty are more likely to experience poorer health outcomes. Paediatricians are in a unique and crucial position to advocate for lifelong change in their patients.

Dr Helen Stewart, a consultant in paediatric emergency medicine and the College's Officer for Health Improvement, speaks with Dr Ian Sinha, consultant respiratory paediatrician and Dr Alice Lee, paediatric trainee and clinical innovation research fellow, both at at Alder Hey Children's Hospital.

Ian and Alice are two of the authors of the RCPCH health inequalities toolkit published in autumn 2022. They talk about why paediatricians have a role in addressing health inequalities and provide advice on how to open up conversations with families.

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Next Episode

Our voices: young people and climate change

This podcast is created by young volunteers with RCPCH &Us and is all about climate change, with some international guests from Ghana and others closer to home from the RCPCH Climate Change Working Group and RCPCH members.

Listen to find out how doctors and young people can work together to make sure that we face the climate change crisis head on.

This is a special edition collaboration with the RCPCH Climate Changers group: Aisling, Ali, Ally, Beth, Demi, Ethan, Kirsten, Jeanette and Noor.

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In this episode we interviewed:

Members of the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement

Perk
Gloria
Anokyewaa

RCPCH Climate Change Working Group members

Dr Katy from Leeds
Dr Shunmay from London

RCPCH Conference attendees

Dr Emily, Dr Ella, Dr Chrysoula, Dr Ella, Dr Ian, Dr Carol, Dr Lucy, Dr Anastasia

Who are we?

RCPCH &Us are a network of children and young people from all over the country (UK) who volunteer together to help improve health, awareness and information/education around what matters to children and young people. We have lots of different projects which bring together young volunteers to make a difference on topics like epilepsy, asthma, mental health and more.

The podcasters are young people from RCPCH &Us who have a passion for engagement and volunteering in child health. They will be creating different podcasts over the year on topics that matter to children and young people. We have been learning how to create a podcast, creating and reviewing content, editing and getting it ready to launch.

Wondering why you keep hearing a moo?

In the summer of 2022, young people were helping out with interviews for staff at RCPCH and in the break time, learnt to moo. Another young person remixed it and that's why we have a moo as a jingle! It means a lot to us and we hope you enjoy it too!

Links mentioned in the episode

Thank you for joining us for the second RCPCH &Us podcast and to everyone who took part. If you want to get in touch to find out more about the RCPCH &Us projects including the Podcasters or the Climate Changers, email [email protected].