Join us and like-minded professionals at the 2026 CORC Forum to hear from experienced and knowledgeable speakers, about how children and young people’s wellbeing support is being informed by evidence to meaningfully influence early intervention and improve systems and practice.
The annual CORC Forum brings together members and colleagues from the mental health, research and education sectors. It's ideal for expanding your knowledge of mental health and wellbeing outcomes for children and young people: based on experience and research. [Reflections from last year’s forum can be found here].
Evidence in practice and prevention: Child Outcomes Research Consortium Forum 2026 takes places on Thursday 26 November 2026, 09:30 to 13:30
It's an online event, making it easily accessible to those across the UK and other countries.
Attendance is free to CORC member organisations' staff, or for the fee of £60 for non-members. Both CORC members and non-members are very welcome, and we look forward to seeing old and news faces there.
CORC Forum 2026 agenda
Kate Dalzell, Head of Evidence-Led Improvement at Anna Freud, and Head of CORC will open and close the event.
We look forward to welcoming Jamie Masraff, Chief Executive of OnSide as our keynote speaker this year. Onside is a national youth charity that is determined to make sure that all young people have the opportunity to shine. OnSide builds and support a network of state-of-the-art, multimillion-pound youth centres, called Youth Zones, in the UK’s most disadvantaged areas, which collectively reach over 60,000 young people every year, through a network of 20 open Youth Zones, with a further three due to open in the next two years. His talk will explore: 'The vital role of youth work and youth clubs.' Jamie will speak from his experience about the situation facing young people, the role that youth centres play in supporting young people to fulfil their potential, and the impact they have on young people’s outcomes.
Nick Tait, CORC Programme Manager, will share recent evidence and developments in understanding and improving child and youth mental health outcomes from across the CORC network and beyond in his talk: 'Developments from the Child Outcomes Research Consortium'.
Delphine Chollet, Senior Researcher from The Children's Society will be presenting latest findings from their freshly published 'Good Childhood Report'. This will be the 15th edition in The Children’s Society’s series of annual reports on the wellbeing of children and young people in the UK. Each year The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Report explores what children and young people tell us about how their lives are going. We are delighted for Delphine to share this with you all directly, and discuss the latest figures, trends and patterns.
Dr. Tom Foley, CAMHS Consultant Psychiatrist and National Clinical Lead for HSE Community Care Record, and Mark Kavanagh, Senior Project Specialist, Centre for Effective Services, working within the HSE Child and Youth Mental Health Office will together talk about: 'Shifting from Activity to Impact: First steps towards a Learning Health System for Child and Youth Mental Health Services in Ireland' and reflect on how routine outcome measurement can help build the foundations for a Learning Health System. This presentation will describe a collaboration between CORC, several Irish CAMHS services and the HSE National Child and Youth Mental Health Office (CYMHO) to develop a consistent outcomes framework for CAMHS in Ireland. They will outline the co-design process, the selection of a small core set of measures alongside symptom-specific measures, and the practical challenges encountered. Tom and Mark will also explore what is needed to move from routine data collection to a fully functioning Learning Health System capable of driving continuous improvement in child and youth mental health services in Ireland.
Chris Klays, CAMHS patient/carer engagement and participation lead - North Yorkshire, York, and Selby (TEWV) will be reflecting with us on what meaningful participation looks like in children's mental health services, and why does it matter? In his talk: 'What young people are telling us about youth participation in mental health services', colleagues from TEWV and CORC will share what young people and staff have told us about participation in CAMHS, the difference it makes, and the lessons for services. They'll explore the key findings from this collaborative work and discuss how they are shaping updates to the CORC Best Practice Framework, ensuring young people's voices are central to how services develop and improve.
And finally, CORC Research Lead, Dr Jenna Jacob will take us through: 'Common threads in prevention work: What evaluation learning tells us about supporting young people who face adversity.' This session will share learning from recent evaluations of programmes supporting children and young people who have experienced adversity, including trauma, violence, exploitation, unmet mental health needs and structural inequalities. Drawing out common threads across different models and settings, it will invite attendees to consider what helps prevention work engage young people earlier, respond to complexity and strengthen joined-up support across systems. The session will also explore how evaluation evidence can inform service design, partnership working and future prevention practice.
You can download the agenda, with timings here:
Speaker Biographies
Jamie Masraff
Jamie Masraff is the Chief Executive of OnSide, the national youth charity that is determined to make sure that all young people have the opportunity to shine. OnSide builds and support a network of state-of-the-art, multimillion-pound youth centres, called Youth Zones, in the UK’s most disadvantaged areas, which collectively reach over 60,000 young people every year, through a network of 20 open Youth Zones, with a further three due to open in the next two years.
Nick Tait
As Programme Manager for CORC, Nick works directly with members as well as on a range of projects in collaboration with CORC partner organisations. Nick joined CORC after working in schools, first as a teacher and then as head teacher of a large London primary school. Through his work with children he saw the importance of effective support for children’s mental health and wellbeing and worked with partner organisations to develop practice in school. He is particularly interested in the wellbeing of the most vulnerable children.
Dr. Tom Foley and Mr. Mark Kavanagh
Tom is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the UCD School of Medicine and a Consultant Psychiatrist in the HSE. He is also The National Clinical Lead for the HSE CCR. / Tom is also an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Newcastle University, where he is founder and Principal Investigator on the Learning Healthcare Project, a resource for those developing Learning Health Systems. Before moving back to Ireland in 2020, he was the Senior Clinical Lead for Data at NHS Digital.
Mark is a Senior Project Specialist with the Centre for Effective Services (CES), embedded within the HSE Child and Youth Mental Health Office. His work focuses on outcomes, data and evidence-informed service improvement, including development of the Child and Youth Mental Health Outcomes Framework and wider Learning Health System approaches. Previously, he was National Lead for Data and Reporting at Tusla – Ireland’s Child and Family Agency. Prior to returning to Ireland, he managed the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) in King’s College London, a major national health quality improvement programme and the single source of stroke data for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Delphine Chollet
Delphine is a Senior Researcher at The Children’s Society.
Chris Klays
Chris is the CAMHS patient/carer engagement and participation lead at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (North Yorkshire, York, and Selby). Chris has 5 years’ experience working in the Third/Public sector leading on a range of mental health initiatives for young people, including website and podcast development. He comes from having a lived experience background and now works in the service he accessed when growing up. He believes that meaningful participation can create both long-term benefits for the individuals involved, and efficiencies and improved care within services.
Dr. Jenna Jacob
Jenna is CORC’s Research Lead and has extensive experience designing and delivering service evaluations across children and young people’s mental health settings, working with commissioners, providers and young people to generate actionable learning for policy and practice. This most recently included evaluations of three national Vanguards supporting children and young people living in complex situations. Her wider work focuses on improving how mental health and wellbeing outcomes are understood, measured and used in practice, with particular expertise in patient-centred and personalised outcome measurement, including collaborative goal setting. Jenna is especially interested in ensuring that children and young people’s own priorities and experiences shape definitions of meaningful change.
Cost
| CORC member | Non-member |
|---|---|
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Free
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£60
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Please use the booking link below to secure your place(s).
Please note: the number of spaces available may be restricted if required to keep numbers manageable.