Mental Health in Children and Young People: Psychological Approaches (Online Learning) (Taught)

The MSc Mental Health in Children and Young People: Psychological Approaches (Online Learning) offers a unique perspective. It highlights that developmental processes at multiple levels, from individual to sociocultural, influence children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. It also emphasises the need for this dynamic and interactional system to inform approaches to working with mental health and wellbeing.

This programme is aligned with UNESCO rights-based child wellbeing frameworks and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, integrating perspectives on global citizenship and planetary wellbeing to enable you to understand children’s mental health within rapidly changing ecological, cultural, and transnational contexts. It explores how identity, belonging, climate change, and mobility shape young people’s experiences, equipping you to critically evaluate ecological and sociocultural determinants of wellbeing.

By drawing on the knowledge and clinical experience of a world-class department of clinical and health psychology, the programme aims to equip students with the knowledge necessary for understanding children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing from this unique perspective.

The programme will also draw upon many other theoretical areas, including:

• early intervention

• health promotion

• public health

• health and social inequalities

• critical psychology

• developmental psychopathology and resilience

The programme is part-time, fully online, and designed with professionals in mind. The online delivery format and part-time study options allow for professionals from a range of disciplinary backgrounds to develop knowledge and practice while continuing to meet individual life and work demands.

Distinctive features of the programme include:

• the integration of clinical and professional practice with current theoretical and empirical developments in the evidence base for, and delivery of, mental health programmes for children and young people

• flexibility of delivery

• opportunities for knowledge exchange between a range of graduates and practitioners from multi-professional backgrounds

• many opportunities for the synthesis of theory, evidence and practice