Forensic CAMHS goes international

In May 2016, Dr Abdullah Kraam, clinical lead for our forensic child adolescent and mental health service (CAMHS), Bekki Whisker, service manager, and Paula Phillips, general manager, shared their knowledge and expertise at an international conference in Porto, Portugal.
The European Association for Forensic Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychology and other involved Professions (EFCAP) conference was themed around the mental health needs of young offenders and victims, specifically dealing with assessment, intervention and legal issues.
Dr Kraam talked about his experience of being part of the NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) expert committee in England who are currently developing national guidelines for children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviour. Paula and Bekki spoke about how to commission harmful sexual behaviour services for children and young people who are in custody and gave some examples of how policy impacts on the young people’s journey through the criminal justice system.
Clinical professionals from over 30 nations attended the conference.
The conference offered the rare chance to network with colleagues from the UK and abroad with expertise in a specialist area. It also opened up opportunities for collaborative research in forensic CAMHS.
Dr Kraam said: “It was absolutely amazing to present at the conference. Everything went brilliantly and our presentation was really well attended, which shows it’s a key topic of interest across the world. We had many people come to speak to us about how things work in the UK and how they can implement the policies in their own countries. We were so proud to share the excellent work done by the forensic CAMHS team on such a large scale.”
View the team’s presentation online.