Overview
Organisation: East London Foundation Trust
Organisation type: NHS Trust
Children and young people's mental health is an increasing national need. In 2023, 20% of children aged 8 to 16 had a probable mental health disorder. Numbers of young people in contact with children and young people's mental health services is also increasing, in November 2019 there were 231,000 children and young people in contact with mental health services, by November 2023 these numbers had nearly doubled, with 445,000 people in contact. Mental health services are struggling to keep up with the increase in need and therefore we were keen to think outside of the box and consider the use of innovative technologies to support children's mental health.
Lumi Nova is one of the technologies recommended within NICE's health technology evaluation on guided self-help digital cognitive behavioural therapy for children and young people with mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety or low mood: early value assessment (HTE3). Lumi Novia is for children aged 7 to 12 with symptoms of anxiety. It combines evidence-based therapeutic and psychoeducational content with an intergalactic role-playing game.
Reviewing the services that were already available to children and young people it became clear that there was a gap in support aimed at primary school children, with the services available being aimed either at parents or older children. Lumi Nova had the potential to meet this unmet need and so we decided to investigate ways to trial this technology within our geographical footprint.
Mental health support teams (MHST) were identified as the ideal service to implement this technology as the focus of the team is on early intervention and prevention. The use of digital technology within children and young people's mental health is a new way of working, therefore takes a team culture welcoming change and innovation. These teams were perfect for the trial as they were relatively newly formed teams and in a strong position to try new ways of working