Tell us a little about you?
For just over a year now, I have worked for the Children & Young People’s Health Partnership (CYPHP) as the Trial Co-ordinator for the evaluation of the CYPHP model of care. Before joining the team I studied for a BSc Psychology and MPhil Neuroscience at Newcastle University, and then completed my PhD at the University of Manchester. My PhD looked at interventions to reduce maternal anxiety during pregnancy.
I am interested in the causes and effects of poorer mental health and health behaviours in parents and children, and interventions that can be used to improve these outcomes. Specifically, I am interested in applying health psychology theory to understand behaviour patterns and mental health in parents and families.
How do you see the role?
My role is to ensure we collect the best quality evidence to demonstrate what impact CYPHP services are having on patients’ lives, and on health service use. I’m responsible for ensuring that the research conducted is robust, ethical, and meaningful. Too often services are commissioned and rolled out without seeing whether they are effective; and what factors determine whether or not services are effective for specific patient groups. We hope to answer a lot of these questions, so that services for children in Lambeth and Southwark continue to improve, and that learning from CYPHP can be applied to help improve health also in other areas of the country.
What is your hope for the CYPHP programme?
What makes CYPHP really interesting is the proactive approach to patient health. Rather than waiting until patients become ill, and have developed health behaviours that are more difficult to change, CYPHP services are trying to instil long term behaviour change by focusing more on preventative healthcare advice and better self-management. Hopefully this empowers patients, making them more informed on what they can do to better manage their child’s health.
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