Mental health can be a challenging and sensitive topic. In this podcast, five child health professionals talk about how they are are tackling the issue through advocacy and innovation.

The spring edition of the College’s member magazine Milestones has a special focus on supporting children and young people’s mental health. To mark this, Milestones Editor and Mental Health Lead Dr James Dearden speaks to a number of its contributors. With a wealth of experience between them, they discuss the increase in mental health issues in young people and the role of paediatricians in supporting them.

It's really clear that that we need to involve ourselves in mental health. It's really clear that that's what young people are asking of us... We expect it these days of teachers, GPs, social workers, so we should absolutely expect it of ourselves.

Karen Street, consultant paediatrician and RCPCH Officer for Mental Health

Download transcript

RCPCH resources for members on supporting child health mental health

We know that children living in poverty are more likely to experience poorer health outcomes. Paediatricians are in a unique and crucial position to advocate for lifelong change in their patients.

Dr Helen Stewart, a consultant in paediatric emergency medicine and the College's Officer for Health Improvement, speaks with Dr Ian Sinha, consultant respiratory paediatrician and Dr Alice Lee, paediatric trainee and clinical innovation research fellow, both at at Alder Hey Children's Hospital.

Ian and Alice are two of the authors of the RCPCH health inequalities toolkit published in autumn 2022. They talk about why paediatricians have a role in addressing health inequalities and provide advice on how to open up conversations with families.

Download transcript of this episode

This podcast is all about working with children and young people to help improve their health and the health of others. Have a listen for ideas, examples and information on engagement from RCPCH doctors and young people from RCPCH &Us - we hope you enjoy it!

The podcasters are: Ali, Demi, Emma, Joseph, Leo, Lowenna, Oscar, Shashank, Shreya and Timooothy. We also had help from other RCPCH &Us volunteers Aisling, Sohan and Clare. Plus John and Jamie who brought Timooothy to life!

In this episode we interviewed: Dr Shouja from Wales, Kath from Barts Health, Louca-Mai a researcher from University of Hertfordshire and Ally from the Luna Project.

Download transcript

RCPCH &Us are a network of children and young people from all over the country (UK) who volunteer together to help improve health, awareness and information/education around what matters to children and young people. We have lots of different projects which bring together young volunteers to make a difference on topics like epilepsy, asthma, mental health and more. The podcasters are young people from RCPCH &Us who have a passion for engagement and volunteering in child health. They will be creating different podcasts over the year on topics that matter to children and young people. We have been learning how to create a podcast, creating and reviewing content, editing and getting it ready to launch.

Wondering why you keep hearing a moo? In the summer of 2022, young people were helping out with interviews for staff at RCPCH and in the break time, learnt to moo. Another young person remixed it and that's why we have a moo as a jingle!  It means a lot to us and we hope you enjoy it too!  

Links mentioned in the podcast:

• RCPCH &Us, plus the latest issue of Milestones &Us (winter 2022)
• Renal transplant support for young people
• GPs in youth centres (PDF) 
• Association for Young People’s Health (AYPH) 
• Embedding youth participation in health - Bristol University
• About children’s rights
• NHS England Youth Forum 
• National Children's Bureau - Listening to young voices
• Luna Project 
• Advice and guidance on engaging children and young people in your health service on QI Central

Thank you for joining us for our first RCPCH &Us podcast and to everyone who took part.

We hope that by sharing our voices and empowering examples of engagement, you are inspired to be creative and get involved. Engagement is the way we can make this happen, please ask what children and young people think, listen to our voices and together we can create outstanding child health services.

Get in touch with RCPCH &Us [email protected]

The conversation continues between Professor Paul Dimitri, our Vice President for Science & Research, and Emily Arkell, Director of Research & Policy, as they dive into one of our aims of the College strategy 2021-24.

In the first part, Paul outlined the state of child health research in the UK. Now he looks at what we can do about it - from recognising the need to focus on children to capitalising on new technologies that can revolutionise patient care. He discusses what the College is doing, including our national clinical audits, the quality improvement resource, QI Central, partnership in the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit and range of fellowships and awards. And he gives an insight into how he started in research, and how you might, too!

Download transcript

We consider the importance of research to clinical practice in child health. This is the first of a two-part conversation between Professor Paul Dimitri, our Vice President for Science & Research, and Emily Arkell, Director of Research & Policy - and the fourth of our 'in conversation' series on the College strategy 2021-24.

One of our aims is to harness knowledge, data and intelligence to improve the quality of care in paediatrics, and we do this through a range of quality improvement programmes and support of child health research. Almost a quarter of England's population is under 20 years of age, but they consume just 11% of the NHS budget. Just 5% of health research in the UK over a recent five-year period was on children and young people, and there are fewer clinical academic paediatricians than 10 years ago. So how can we encourage investment in child health research?

Download full transcript

How can we build resilience and promote self-care at work? And what can we do at a Trust and wider level?

We speak with two consultant paediatricians:

First up is Dr Seb Gray, a consultant paediatrician in Salisbury, who wears many hats when it comes to promoting joy at work. Seb is on the editorial team of membership magazine, Milestones where he introduced a regular feature on wellbeing. He also led a subgroup of our Paediatrics 2040 programme, which produced a report full of practical ideas on supporting wellbeing (PDF).

Next, Dr Dal Hothi, our Officer for Lifelong Careers, shares her four-part framework on wellbeing, which includes how we can build resilience and promote work-life balance and self-care. She’s looking at how we can build a Wellbeing and Innovation, or WIN, community – cultivating a sense of connection and standing up for paediatricians.

Explore more resources on our website: Your wellbeing and Lifelong careers.

Keep up to date by following us on Twitter @RCPCHtweets, or finding us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram. 

Download full transcript

Our mission to improve child health doesn't end at our borders. The RCPCH Global programme partners with paediatric societies, global aid organisations and local agencies to train, advise and offer medical support.

In our third episode of our 'in conversation' series on the College Strategy, our Head of Global Sebastian Taylor speaks with Dr Sue Broster, Officer for Global Child Health and a consultant neonatologist about the important role the College plays in improving global child health. 

Sue tells us, "I think we're really seeing our membership start to say, is there something that we should be doing more loudly, more vociferously in a really constructive way, through advocacy for a range of issues in the global health arena as much as we're doing it in a number of other areas like child protection, safeguarding, etc."

Download transcript

Your wellbeing - as busy health professionals - matters. At our annual conference in Liverpool this past June, we spoke with several members making a huge impact in their own hospitals and Trusts.

This is the first of two episodes on wellbeing, and here we explore how to really understand the needs of the people you work with.

First we hear with Dr Ash Patel at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital on how sharing baked treats can be one way to build a culture of wellbeing. That's led to his popular baking columns in our membership magazine, Milestones, and the 'Great Paediatric Bake Off' series.

And then Dr Susie Minson and Dr Benita Morrissey, both from the Royal London Hospital, explain how they've worked to create enduring resilience and happiness at work, bringing along the whole multidisciplinary team.

Download transcript

The education and training of paediatricians is core to the College, and we dedicate one of our strategic aims to this theme, including lifelong learning, mentorship and choosing specialties.

In our second episode of our 'in conversation' series on the College Strategy, Dr Jonathan Darling, RCPCH Vice President of Education and Training, shares his thoughts on the changes in paediatric training and how the College is responding, whether it's a new online learning platform, updates to our ePortfolio, the launch of Progress+ in summer 2023 and record attendance at this summer's Conference.

Download full transcript

From the joy of finding people with a common purpose to the recognition that there's still a long way to go... College members Segn Nedd, Nadia Audhali and Mike Farquhar share their experiences and insights as part of our EDI member reference group. 

Find out more and get the transcript