'Mind the Kids': an ACAMH podcast

Trauma-informed and trauma-responsive care are at the heart of this thoughtful conversation about how we support children and young people who have experienced adversity.
In this Mind the Kids episode 'Trauma responsive care: It's all about me', hosts Dr. Jane Gilmour and Professor Umar Toseeb, talk with Dr. Sarah Parry, University of Manchester, about what trauma actually is, how it overlaps with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and why simply “totting up” ACEs scores can miss the individual context and meaning of events for each young person.
They explore the principles that should underpin good practice with all children and adolescents – consistency, curiosity, low emotional tone, and sensitivity to triggers – and ask whether these should be seen as core to high-quality care rather than an “add‑on” labelled trauma-informed.
The discussion moves from definitions to practice: Sarah unpacks the difference between being “trauma-aware”, “trauma-informed” and “trauma-responsive”, arguing that truly responsive care must be embedded across whole organisations and systems, not just in the therapy room. Drawing on her work in residential care and with young people who hear voices, she highlights the importance of framing, coping strategies, choice, safety, and timing in talking therapies, as well as the potential harms of blame and poorly timed debriefing after traumatic events.
The episode also touches on intergenerational and indirect forms of trauma, links with cultural humility, and how environments can be shaped so that all young people – including those in care or from marginalised communities – can engage and recover.
Whether you are a clinician, researcher, educator, or caregiver, this conversation offers a nuanced, practical look at moving beyond buzzwords toward everyday, trauma-responsive environments that genuinely support young people’s mental health.
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In this episode of Mind the Kids, hosts Dr Jane Gilmour, honorary consultant clinical psychologist and Child Development Programme Director at UCL, and Professor Umar Toseeb, Professor of Psychology at the University of York, explore what happens when children and young people with severe or complex mental health difficulties are admitted to hospital.
Drawing on a powerful real-world case that sparked Umar’s interest, they ask: when is inpatient care really needed, what does a good ward environment look like, and how does admission affect young people and their families over time?
Jane and Umar are joined by Dr Dawn Cutler, Principal Clinical Psychologist, and Guy Larrington, Principal Family Therapist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, who discuss:

Which kinds of difficulties typically lead to admission (including mood disorders, suicidality, eating disorders, and functional symptoms)

How clinicians weigh up risk, severity, and functioning when considering admission

What day-to-day life on a child and adolescent inpatient ward looks like, including education, structure, and relationships with staff

The role of nursing, family involvement, and “shared care” in creating a therapeutic environment

How goal-based outcomes can capture what matters most to young people and their families

The episode also touches on neurodiversity in inpatient settings, systemic inequalities in who is detained, and the transdiagnostic skills and therapeutic relationships that can support recovery across diagnoses. This is a practical, reflective conversation for clinicians, researchers, and anyone wanting to better understand inpatient child and adolescent mental health care.
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For many families of autistic young people, leaving school feels less like a gentle transition and more like falling off a cliff into a fragmented, underfunded adult service system where no one is clearly in charge. In this Mind the Kids episode 'Navigating the service cliff - Supporting autistic youth transition into adulthood', Mark Tebbs speaks with Professor Julie Lowndes Taylor from Vanderbilt University Medical Center about ASSIST (Advocating for SupportS to Improve Service Transition), a 12‑week parent advocacy programme designed to equip families with the knowledge, skills and confidence to navigate that maze.​
Drawing on a large multi-site randomised controlled trial of 185 families, they discuss how ASSIST weaves together national-level information on adult disability services with local expert input, how moving the programme online during COVID reshaped both accessibility and peer support, and what the data show about changes in parents’ advocacy skills, service knowledge and actual access to government-funded programmes. The conversation also looks ahead to next steps, including using the ASSIST curriculum to train peer navigators, tackling structural barriers such as underfunding and provider shortages, and ensuring that efforts to boost advocacy do not inadvertently widen existing inequities.
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You can read the main JCPP paper discussed in this episode, “Effects of a parent advocacy intervention on service access for transition-aged autistic youth,” via https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70036
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In this special episode of Mind the Kids, “Tics: Education, Education, Education”, hosts Dr. Jane Gilmour, Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Child Development Programme Director at UCL, and Professor Umar Toseeb from the University of York, take a deep dive into Tourette’s syndrome—what it is, how it manifests, and how it’s often misunderstood.
Inspired by the BAFTA award-winning film I, Swear, Jane and Umar discuss the difference between types of tics, what Tourette’s looks like in real life versus in media portrayals, and the realities for children and young people living with the condition today.
Their conversation spans everything from neurological and functional tics to the challenges of recognition, school experiences, and how we can all respond with greater empathy and understanding.
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This episode of 'Mind the Kids: Lessons from the ABCD data revolution' unpacks why “how we measure puberty” really matters for understanding adolescent mental health and development. Professor Adriene Beltz talks to Mark Tebbs about the huge US Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, which is following nearly 12,000 young people over 10 years with regular brain scans and surveys, giving an unprecedented window into how early experiences shape later outcomes.​
While investigating multisite pain and sex differences, her team stumbled on a problem: researchers using ABCD data were often relying on a convenient categorical puberty score (pre‑, early, mid‑, late, post‑puberty) that drops information and heavily weights the onset of menstruation, rather than using a richer continuous score based on all five pubertal development items. Their analyses show the continuous score is generally more reliable, better aligned with existing puberty research, and less distorted by big “jumps” around menarche, especially for girls.​
The conversation becomes a wider call to action: if puberty timing and tempo can shape lifelong trajectories in mental health, pain, and social experiences, then getting the measurement wrong risks misleading conclusions and missed opportunities for prevention. Adriene urges researchers to be thoughtful and transparent about how they score puberty in large datasets, to report clearly what they used, and to remember that puberty is a normative but highly sensitive transition where context, culture, and support all matter just as much as hormones.
 Read the paper 'Research Review: On the (mis)use of puberty data in the ABCD Study® – a systematic review, problem illustration, and path forward' at https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70035
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