Following a successful grant in 2022, Achieve, Change and Engagement (ACE) will extend the work of their cognitive behavioural therapist in order to support more disadvantaged young people in Lancashire improve their mental health and
emotional wellbeing.

Over the past few years, the threshold for specialised Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) has risen and Lancashire has one of the highest rates of young people with mental illness in England. This is putting pressure on services like ACE which currently has a waiting list of over 100 young people. Some young people are waiting up to 24 weeks before being seen. Most of these young people come from wards with high indices of deprivation and many have adverse childhood experiences.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is particularly effective for people suffering with complex cases of anxiety, depression, phobias, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This application will increase the hours of the CBT therapist to two days a week and recruit and support two CBT students on placement. This will result in 40 young people receiving help each year.

The funding will also continue to support increased clinical supervision hours. Over the past year, this has successfully built skills within the staff team which has led to 60% of clients with shorter interventions (under 20 weeks), reduced waiting times and enabled 36% more young people to access services.

ACE uses the Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) to track progress and assess improvements in mental health. The project will build efficiency within the staff team and reduce waiting times for young people. It will also enable young people to improve their mental health, better manage their symptoms, build resilience and fully engage with life’s opportunities.