The Landscape Study – a CAMHS Research Project
The Landscape Study focuses on developing the evidence base to improve care quality and outcomes for children and young people requiring intensive therapeutic mental health care.
The three-year project will generate new knowledge that aims to help advance NHS England’s drive to transform children and young people’s inpatient mental health services through development of evidence-based services and solutions to the challenges facing children and young people experiencing acute and complex mental health needs.*
With an increase in emergency mental health care referrals by over 50% in the past three years, there has been a mounting demand for mental health services to support children and young people. There were 32,521 emergency and urgent referrals to child and adolescent mental health services crisis teams in 2022-23 alone.**
The research project, which successfully secured a £280K research grant to NAPICU via a charitable donation from Janie Jackson, was developed by Dr Celeste Foster from the University of Salford alongside NAPICU’s Dr Beryl Navti.
The research project is led by the Chair of NAPICU and Consultant psychiatrist, Dr Stephen Pereira, alongside Celeste as the academic principal investigator.
Stephen said: “We are very grateful to Janie Jackson for the significant funding that will allow us to deliver this incredibly important research project, which should positively impact the lives of our children and young people experiencing serious mental health challenges.”
Celeste said: “A range of recent studies and government-commissioned reports have laid out the nature and extent of the challenges facing children and young people, their families, and the organisations and staff trying to provide care for them. However, the evidence-base upon which to base development of effective services and treatments for this age group is very limited.
“What is needed now is a generation of rigorous, practice-driven, research evidence and innovation to respond to these pressing challenges effectively. This research project is intended to bring together a community of practice to address this gap.”
The project includes a fully funded industrial PhD studentship at the University of Salford, in order to build research capacity within the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) clinical network, and an extensive programme of national stakeholder and service user engagement. Janine Hunter, PhD Student and researcher on the landscape study, is also an experienced nurse and team leader within an adolescent intensive mental health support service (formerly PICU), and so is well placed to ensure the research reflect practice priorities.
Janie Jackson said: “I’m delighted to fund a PHD student to carry out this vital research. I’m passionate that children and young people get better help when suffering from mental health issues. Mental health challenges affect people of all ages, social groups and sectors of society and there’s simply not enough provision in particular for young people. This project will do incredibly important research into how to improve access to emergency mental health care for younger sections of society.”
A mixed methods research design, centred around a national survey mapping practice patterns in CAMHS inpatient services, will establish a comprehensive understanding of how care provision for children and young people experiencing acute and complex mental health needs is organised, implemented and used, drawing out implications for improving standards for future design and delivery of intensive therapeutic mental health care. The survey has been co-designed with young people, adults and families with lived experience, clinicians, commissioners, service providers and a range of other stakeholders.
The survey is now live and data collection has begun and we will begin to share findings later in the year.
Young people from the research study’s advisory group explain why they think the research is important and how they have contributed to its development. If you are a staff member in one of the services that has been asked to complete the survey, and you would like to take part, you can read more about the research on the Landscape Study blog. For more information about the study, or to enquire about taking part if you haven’t already received an invitation, please contact camhslandscapestudy@salford.ac.uk
25.06.2026
