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The new practitioner - the emergence of the post-modern clinician
Sami Timimi
This article looks at child and adolescent psychiatry, and questions the assumptions, universal constructs and resulting clinical practice. The author, who is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, questions the western approach to psychiatry and psychiatric training, and how this is related to western philosophy. He discusses cultural and religious differences, and how this can impact on the thinking around mental health. Plus, the author states that a post-modern approach has helped his thinking.
Inside out - prison and parent-child relationships
Adrienne Katz
This article is about the Parenting Under Pressure: Prisons’ Project which found that few children or teenagers were consulted about their care when a parent was imprisoned. The article discusses how having a parent in prison can impact on children or young peoples’ mental health and how lack of planning and support at the end of the sentence, can impact on the family.
Market forces - listening to what young people want
Liz Neill
This article is about a user involvement initiative at The Market Place project in Leeds. The Market Place is an information, advice and counselling service for young people aged 13-25. Their consultation involved 30 young people aged between 13 and 25. The authors discuss the difficulties of carrying out this kind of initiative and how to use the information to improve the service and feed it into the bigger picture.
Rooms for improvement - adolescent views on in-patient care
Cathy Street and Jenny Svanberg
This article is about the YoungMinds research project which investigates innovative ways of working in adolescent in-patient services and looks at how they have involved young people in the project. They have spoken to young people, their parents and staff in adolescent in-patient services, on adult psychiatric wards and paediatric wards, in secure provision and from backgrounds of homelessness. Young people want to be informed about these services and what is expected of them. Issues of concern for young people included the state of the building, boredom, staffing shortages and sometimes the relationships with other young people.
Terms of engagement - reaching hard to reach adolescents
Mark Griffiths
The author looks at the available research to find out how various factors influence engagement in mental health services, i.e. gender and age. He also looks how service factors influence engagement, i.e. waiting lists, feeling intimidated etc. The research confirms the view that young people are difficult to engage. Some evidence suggests that those with the most serious mental health needs are not receiving the help and support they need. The author then goes into more detail about what services can do to engage young people.
West side story - mentoring black boys in Chicago
Reva Klein
This article is about a mentoring project in Chicago, which is run by the national organisation ‘100 Black Men of America’. All its members are African American men, and are successful professionals who are interested in improving the quality of life in their communities. They work preventatively with black boys who have been identified by their schools as heading towards special education. This work hasn’t been formally evaluated, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it is helping these boys.
Review: A multidisciplinary handbook of child and adolescent mental health for front-line professionals
Jenny Cobb
The book covers such things as child and family development, factors that influence mental health, the specific problems that arise, treatment and management strategies and medico-legal issues. The authors write in a straightforward jargon-free way and back up their material with up-to-date research so that each chapter is clear and easy to follow. There is however no discussion on supervision, organisational dynamics, the pros and cons of multi-agency working or social and political influences.
Review: Becoming delinquent
Ann Hagell
By bringing together a set of papers on various aspects of delinquency in Britain and Europe over the last three centuries, the book shows that many of the dilemmas are as old as the hills, but also that context places different issues in the spotlight at different times. This book is thus based on a very social and interactional model of delinquency.
Review: Donnie Darko, and Antwone Fisher
Imogen Le Patourel
Donnie is a troubled teenager for whom therapy and medication cannot halt his hallucinations and destructive behaviour. The film is scornful of self-help fads, as Donnie’s life cannot be simplified when it is so complicated and unfathomable. Antwone Fisher is based on the true story of a young black man who gets into too many fights when he is in the navy and is referred to therapy, where an abusive childhood is uncovered.
Review: Recovering from depression
Dr Vicki Connop
This workbook is aimed at teenagers and aims to educate them about depression as well as equipping them with self-help strategies. It draws on medical and cognitive behavioural models, although it is quite long and depressed young people might have problems finding the motivation to work their way through it. Some of the suggestions are a bit simplistic, although might be helpful to young people who are mildly depressed, who are living in loving families.
Review: The blank state, and They F*** you up
Barbara Lloyd
Both of these books are aimed at a general audience and are concerned with nature and nurture. The Blank Slate describes how enlightenment theories sought to explain human nature in an increasingly secular age and also looks at biological issues. They F*** You Up also looks at how genes and childhood experience affect how we relate to each other, but also provides guided questioning to change lives and is more ‘chatty’ in style.
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