Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the contribution made by Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists to the NHS.

The Department has not made a specific assessment of the effectiveness of the contribution made by Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists to the National Health Service.

Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists form part of the wider workforce on children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing and can provide support in a range of settings. Health Education England commissions training for Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy as part of a four year doctorate. The training and practice is accredited by the Association of Child Psychotherapists.

Building the capacity, capability and confidence of both the specialist and wider workforce is a key part of the Government’s approach to improving children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing, sustained through a culture of continuous evidence-based service improvement, delivered by a workforce with the right mix of skills, competencies and experience.

In addition, the Children and Young People's Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme is transforming existing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services to ensure they are providing evidence based therapies coupled with session by session outcome monitoring. The programme is being expanded to cover additional areas of clinical practice, so that all children and young people’s mental health services are able to deliver high quality evidence-based care by 2018.