We offer practitioners an accessible way to access training or refresh their knowledge on key concepts and core competencies in working with outcome measures and feedback tools, and in interpreting and using data to improve services. The bitesize modules are 10 and 30 minutes each, and our production pipeline includes training that look at using measures effectively and collaboratively with young people, interpreting data and helpful statistical concepts, and tackling common barriers to implementation. To suggest a topic you would find helpful for us to cover in an online module, please email us at corc@annafreud.org.
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Introduction to working with outcome and feedback measures
Explore the fundamentals of outcome and feedback measurement
Knowing the limited resources available to staff working to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing, and the pressures that arise in providing the best service possible, we decided to design the eLearning with non-specialised mental health staff in mind. It needed to be a taster of the basics of working with outcome and feedback measures, relevant for those who work in this area, those who need to know about them but may not work directly with children and young people.
We wanted to provide a training for those without access to specialised NHS training such as voluntary sector staff, data managers, researchers, administrators and those working in schools. We understood the need for it to be practical, simplified but substantial enough to demonstrate how staff can make realistic changes in their practice.
This free interactive short module aims to demystify and simplify the whole process of using outcomes and feedback measures to monitor mental wellbeing.
It features engaging activities and quizzes to illustrate how staff can choose and use measures to monitor wellbeing and how to analyse wellbeing information to drive improvement and demonstrate effectiveness.
Let's begin:
Participants told us:
"The eLearning module has really helped with developing my practice, understanding and supporting children's mental health is a focus for this year and measuring outcomes of the support we provide is our focus."
"Mental health is always an area that can be complex so I am feeling much more confident in understanding wellbeing issues and how to support."
"The module gave a good understanding of how to introduce measures. the interactive aspect was also useful to help me see what knowledge I have gained."
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How do young people relate to filling in mental health outcome measures?
Practitioners in mental health often use questionnaires to understand more about different aspects of young people's mental health, to measure problems or strengths, or to track how they change over time. How do young people relate to filling in outcome questionnaires? In this video project some of the mental health practitioners in CORC member services and Young Champions from the Anna Freud Centre have shared their views.
We encourage you to share this video with your colleagues, post the link on any relevant platforms and use it in your training programmes. The messages from young people in this video can be really useful if routine outcome monitoring is being introduced in your programme or service for the first time or if you are reviewing practice, ensuring the process is meaningful for them and sensitive to their concerns.
- 00:34 What do mental health practitioners say about the usefulness of outcome measures?
- 02:02 How is the service user involved, and how does this become helpful to the young people and a meaningful part of their support
- 06:01 Not every young person feels comfortable or safe when filling out mental health outcome questionnaires. What can practitioners do to support the young person?
- 07:39 Some young people do say that they experience outcome questionnaires as tick-box exercise. What can practitioners do to avoid that?
- 09:07 Acknowledge that the outcome measures are impacted by the service user and practitioner relationship
- 10:26 Don’t assume what a young person will feel or think about outcome measures
- 11:39 In summary
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Choosing the right measure for your service or intervention
Explore and develop your understanding and skills on how to choose the right measure for your service or intervention
After this free 20 minutes module, you will be able to:
- Understand that different measures have different purposes
- Use a logic model to help identify what you need to measure
- Know where to find more information on specific measures and make the choice
Let's begin:
Resources
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Interpretation and use of outcome data in child and youth mental health
Can you think of a time when outcome information from your services was presented to you? Maybe you were hearing it at a team meeting or a management meeting; maybe you were discussing it with a commissioner. It was possibly presented as single number results or as colourful, tidy graphs?
Whilst working with our member services and beyond, CORC have found that these simplified visual representations of child and youth mental health data can make it look quite clean-cut and there may be a tendency to draw immediate conclusions based on the information they yield. But the reality is that child and youth mental health data is messy and complex, giving good reasons to be particularly thoughtful about how we interpret and use this information. Whilst CORC acknowledge that there are uncertainties with these data, we also believe that this is unlikely to change in the near future and so understanding the strengths and limitations up front will help to give way to better conversations around the implications of what the data is telling us and help to identify service improvements.
This module offers practical tips for facilitating these discussions and helping you ask the right questions when exploring the data.Let's begin:
Resources
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How to use mental health measurement questionnaires: six steps to good practice
Revitalise your passion for using feedback and measurement tools to support young people with this online training. This module is presented by CORC regional officer Lee Atkins, and centres on the experience and perspectives of two young people, Anand and Sam, in sharing the essentials of using measures effectively to improve care and support.
Ideal as a refresher or as part of staff induction, the training identifies the six simple and achievable steps to using mental health measurement questionnaires in a person-centred way as part of open and collaborative practice, including:- Using a suitable tool for the job
- Being familiar with the measurement questionnaire
- Preparing to introduce it
- Using it to explore and to understand with the child or young person
- Preparing to give feedback and discuss responses and scores
- Plan ahead
Lee Atkins says: "It can be fairly easy to fall into the trap of using outcome and feedback measures in ways that do not lead to the expected benefits associated with using them. Our starting point for understanding the best effective practice around measures was to listen to young people, particularly ex-service users, to understand what works and what causes challenges. This module is based upon work with young people and practitioners and aims to break the process of using measures effectively down into six easy-to-follow steps that can be followed in practice."
Let's begin:
This module also sits alongside a brief video co-produced by Anna Freud Centre Young Champions, CORC and CORC members from mental health services, about how outcome measures should be used in mental health. The messages from young people in this video can also be really useful where routine outcome monitoring is being introduced for the first time, or if you are reviewing practice, in ensuring the use of measurement questionnaires is meaningful for those being supported.
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For Schools: Measuring and monitoring children and young people's mental wellbeing
Explore and develop your understanding of mental wellbeing and why schools should measure it
This 30 minutes video with CORC's Regional Officer Lee Atkins aims to raise awareness amongst school and college staff of the range of validated tools that are available to help measure subjective mental wellbeing amongst the student population.
This, in turn, will help school and college leaders make use of school and college level data to identify the mental wellbeing needs of students and determine how best to address these.
Efforts taken by schools and colleges to promote the physical and mental health of the student population creates a virtuous circle, reinforcing attainment and achievement that in turn improves student wellbeing, enabling students to thrive and achieve their full potential.
Let's begin:
Resources
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Considerations in sharing child and youth mental health data
From our experience, organisations often have ideas about how sharing data could improve insights into their work with children and young people, and would benefit from an overview of the key issues and complexities before getting started. Our new CORC online training module aims to offer you two parts in regards to considerations in sharing data.
Although data sharing can provide great benefits for individuals and populations, it is an area that is often clouded by uncertainty, with ethical, legal and technical complexities. Therefore, our first part aims to provide you with an understanding of key concepts and terms for managing and sharing data. While during the second part of this module, you will learn how to identify important areas to take into account when establishing data sharing arrangements, or resolving issues that may arise, such as legal basis for sharing data; data handling processes; building relationships with relevant stakeholders and gaining permissions.
Let's begin:
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Using service user feedback and outcome tools - training videos
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The whole playlist of videos can be found on our YouTube Channel and on our website.
Goal Based Outcomes Training Videos
Another series of videos has been developed by the Children's Wellbeing Practitioner (CWP) Programme in conjunction with the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families and the London and South East CYP-IAPT Learning Collaborative. The videos show examples of ways that practitioners and young people might work together to set and review collaborative goals. These videos are intended to provide examples of good practice and areas that could be improved; with the intention that they will facilitate discussions around goal setting.
The whole playlist of videos can be found on our YouTube Channel or our website.