Child and Youth Mental Health Research Group - Current projects

Factors contributing to the capacity and capability of carers to care for children and young people in out-of-home care with complex mental health difficulties

This study will assess factors which impact on parental reflective capacity, parental stress and parental confidence at commencement of training for foster carers, kinship carers and residential workers. The children and young people that they care for are attending a specialist mental health service. Further research will examine training outcomes for carers.

Principal Investigator: Kathy Eadie

Mental health profile of children and young people in care with complex mental health needs

Do young people who make on-line threats differ from young people who make threats in person?

This research question will focus on all young people who were referred for a threat assessment and explore whether there are differences between young people who make threats exclusively on-line with those that make threats in person.  This research will use multivariate models to determine whether case history can predict on-line versus in-person threats.  Further, it will explore whether the mode of threat is associated with the level of threat predicted in the assessment.  It is anticipated that this research will contribute to understanding how on-line threats may differ from in-person threats and inform responses to on-line threat behaviour.

Principal Investigator: Dr Chelsea Leach, Tasneem Hasan

Co-investigators: Ashley Heath, Carla Newcombe, Scott Harden, Laura Cobzaru, Jordana Hayes, Vinesh Gupta, Michelle Johnston, Amaris En-Hui Tok, Bruce Watt, Shannon Logan

Assessment of risk of violence in youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Typically, empirically validated tools such as the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) are used to assess the risk of violence in neurotypical youth. There is currently no validated tool for the assessment of risk of violence in child and youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This project is a review of available literature to ascertain how the risk of violence is currently assessed in adults and youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities and a case series to provide a practical example of violence risk assessment with currently available instruments, in order to add to the evidence base on the topic.

Principal Investigators: Dr Katherine Monahan (Senior Lecturer UQ) and Dr Brendan McGuire

PRE-EMPT “PREdiction of Early Mental Disorder and Preventive Treatment” Centre of Research Excellence

This project is led by Professor Barnaby Nelson, Orygen, Melbourne and is a partnership with researchers at Telethon Kids Institute (Associate Professor Ashleigh Lin), University of Adelaide (Dr Scott Clark), University of Queensland (Professor Christel Middeldorp), University of Groningen (Netherlands) (Professor Hanneke Wigman) and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany) (Professor Nikolaos Koutsouleris). The CRE will deliver a program of work examining how mental illnesses develop, and identifying risk and protective factors. The UQ/CHQ CYMHS research group focuses on the role of genetic factors in the development and course of mental illnesses.

Investigators: Christel Middeldorp, Enda Byrne, and Naomi Wray

Improving outcomes in mental health. A longitudinal clinical study in children and their families

This project aims to increase knowledge on factors influencing the outcome of childhood and adolescent psychopathology and to improve outcomes by investigating treatment strategies for families in which both parents and children suffer from mental health symptoms.

In families with children referred for child and youth mental health symptoms, we will collect information on a broad variety of factors that may be related to treatment outcome, includingchildren’s and parental symptoms, cognitive functioning, family environment, leisure time activities and biological samples. We will carry out a trial to establish the effect of a parenting program that provide parents with tools to improve problem behavior in children and to cope with associated stressors. Families will be followed till at least 18 months after the first assessment. The results will show whether the parenting program is beneficial for both the parents and the child. They will also show which other factors also influence outcome, providing leads for other ways to improve treatment strategies.

Principal Investigator​s: Christel Middeldorp, Honey Heussler, Matthew Sanders and Professor Naomi Wray

Improving forensic interviewing skills with young people

The study will use well-established research techniques to demonstrate that strategies used by mental health clinicians working with justice-involved youth have differential impact on the type and amount of information retrieved by interviewees which, in turn, influences decisions about risk. Participants will have access to the evidence-based investigative interview training from the Centre for Investigative Interviewing, which has been adapted for clinicians who work with justice-involved youth. Training is a combination of on-line activities (approx. 10 hours) and phone based and phone based mock interviews/case studies to support the practice of participants and reflect skills acquired.

Principal Investigators: Dr Chelsea Leach and Professor Martine Powell

Interviewing young people for a forensic risk assessment

This is a joint project with the Centre for Excellence in Investigative Interviewing, Griffith University. This project aims to explore how clinician's undertake assessment interviews with young people during a forensic risk assessment.  The study explores the techniques and strategies used by clinicians' while interviewing young people who may engage in, or be at risk of, offending behaviour.  The intended benefits of the research include identifying best practice approaches and potential training needs for clinicians. It is anticipated that this research will form the foundation of a best practice interview protocol that may improve the quality of risk assessments with young people.

Principal Investigators: Dr Chelsea Leach, Professor Martine Powell, Katherine Monahan

Associate Investigators: Associate Professor Scott Harden, Tasneem Hasan, Francesca Brown, Luke Pryor and Kym Robinson.

Exploring profiles of young people referred for a threat assessment with an adolescent forensic mental health service

The overall aim of the research is to provide a better understanding and description of young people considered a threat to others.  By exploring how young people referred for a threat assessment may be similar or different to young people referred for violence risk assessment.  It is anticipated that the research will lead to an increased insight into the limitation and generalisability of existing risk assessment research, as well as identify potential areas for effective intervention with this group.

Principal Investigator: Dr Chelsea Leach

Associate Investigators: Associate Professor Scott Harden, Tasneem Hasan, Ashley Heath, Carla Newcombe, Jordana Hayes, Michelle Johnston, Amaris En-Hui Tok, Associate Professor Bruce Watt and Shannon Logan.

Service evaluation

Principal Investigators: William Bor, Michael Daubney, Kathy Eadie, Christel Middeldorp, Olivia Donaghy, Tania Withington, Leanne Payne, Madeleine Pearl, Daniel Wilson, Daniel Sullivan

Routine outcome measures are collected at regular time points during treatment in CYMHS. These data are analysed to investigate the effect of the treatment as well as factors related to treatment outcome, such as gender, age, diagnosis. The results inform the development of improved treatment strategies that will then be tested for their outcomes. 

Evolve Therapeutic Services 15 year outcome study

This study will evaluate Evolve Therapeutic Services, an innovative Queensland, Australia program employing a collaborative wrap-round model of care in combination with a flexible intervention approach, individually tailored to children and young people in care presenting with complex and extreme behavioural and mental health problems. The sample will consist of children and young people that have received intervention from this service between 2006 and 2020. Two clinician-rated measures, the Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) and Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Children and Adolescents (HoNOSCA) will be used. In addition to examining outcomes for the general cohort, differences in outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous consumers will be examined by comparing pre- and post-treatment CGAS and HoNOSCA mean scores. Other factors impacting on outcomes will also be explored.

Principal Investigator - Kathy Eadie, Associate Investigators – Farah Zahir and Warren Bergh

COVID-19 Unmasked Young Children: A longitudinal study to understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young children (1-5 years) and their caregivers

The aim of this study is to advance understanding of the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on young children (1-5 years) and their families. The online survey was completed on 4 occasions (active stage of pandemic and again 3-, 6-, and 12-months following the first survey) to (1) understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the social and emotional wellbeing of infants and pre-schoolers, (2) determine what impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on parent’s mental health, and (3) identify the risk and protective factors for child mental health outcomes.  Parallel COVID-19 Unmasked projects were also conducted in the USA, UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus.

Primary investigator: Dr Alexandra De Young (CHQ/UQ)

Associate investigators: Elisabeth Hoehn, Christel Middledorp, Vanessa Cobham, Mira Vasileva, Eva Alisic, Sonja March, Caroline Donovan

An open label pilot study to determine the feasibility, acceptability, effectiveness and safety of a brief psychosocial intervention for young children and caregivers in a post-disaster context

The aim of this research is to progress our understanding of the prevalence, course, risk factors and best assessment and intervention approaches for young children and families following a natural disaster.

Principal investigator: Alex De Young

Associate investigators: Elisabeth Hoehn, Andrea Baldwin, Sharleen Keleher.

Developing Educator Capacity to Support Young Children’s Approaches to Processing the Emotional Impacts of Environmental Disasters

The objective of this study is to build the capacity and capability of early childhood educators to support young children to process the emotional impacts of natural hazards and disaster events.

Principal Investigator Sharleen Keleher (CHQ/CQUniversity)

Associate Investigators Andrea Baldwin, Alex De Young, Elisabeth Hoehn