Evidence in Practice and Prevention: Child Outcomes Research Consortium Forum 2026

9.30 – 9.35 - Welcome and introduction

9.35 – 10.15 - The vital role of youth work and youth clubs - Jamie Masraff, CEO of OnSide - Jamie will speak from his experience about the situation facing young people, the role that youth centres play in supporting young people to fulfil their potential, and the impact they have on young people’s outcomes.

10.15 – 10.45 - Developments from the Child Outcomes Research Consortium - Nick Tait, Programme Manager, CORC, Anna Freud - Nick will share recent evidence and developments in understanding and improving child and youth mental health outcomes from across the CORC network and beyond.

10.45 – 11.00 - Break

11.00 – 11.30 - The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Report - Delphine Chollet, Senior Researcher, The Children’s Society - Each year The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Report explores what children and young people tell us about how their lives are going. Delphine will share, explore and discuss the latest figures, trends and patterns from this year’s report.

11.30 – 12.00 - Shifting from Activity to Impact: First Steps Towards a Learning Health System for Child and Youth Mental Health Services in Ireland - Dr Tom Foley, CAMHS Consultant Psychiatrist and National Clinical Lead for HSE Community Care Record, and Mark Kavanagh, Senior Project Specialist, Centre for Effective Services, working within the HSE Child and Youth Mental Health Office - How can routine outcome measurement help build the foundations for a Learning Health System? This presentation will describe a collaboration between CORC, several Irish CAMHS services and the HSE National Child and Youth Mental Health Office (CYMHO) to develop a consistent outcomes framework for CAMHS in Ireland. We will outline the co-design process, the selection of a small core set of measures alongside symptom-specific measures, and the practical challenges encountered. We will also explore what is needed to move from routine data collection to a fully functioning Learning Health System capable of driving continuous improvement in child and youth mental health services in Ireland.

12.00 – 12.15 - Break

12.15 – 12.45 - Common Threads in Prevention Work: What Evaluation Learning Tells Us About Supporting Young People Who Face Adversity - Dr Jenna Jacob, CORC Research Lead - This session will share learning from recent evaluations of programmes supporting children and young people who have experienced adversity, including trauma, violence, exploitation, unmet mental health needs and structural inequalities. Drawing out common threads across different models and settings, it will invite attendees to consider what helps prevention work engage young people earlier, respond to complexity and strengthen joined-up support across systems. The session will also explore how evaluation evidence can inform service design, partnership working and future prevention practice.

12.45 – 13.15 - What Young People Are Telling Us About Youth Participation in Mental Health Services - Chris Klays, CAMHS Patient/Carer Engagement and Participation Lead, North Yorkshire, York and Selby (TEWV) - What does meaningful participation look like in children's mental health services, and why does it matter? In this session, colleagues from TEWV and CORC will share what young people and staff have told us about participation in CAMHS, the difference it makes, and the lessons for services. We’ll explore the key findings from this collaborative work and discuss how they are shaping updates to the CORC Best Practice Framework, ensuring young people’s voices are central to how services develop and improve.

13.15 – 13.30 - Closing comments and reflections

Jamie Masraff - Chief Executive of OnSide

OnSide is a national youth charity that is determined to make sure all young people have the opportunity to shine. OnSide builds and supports a network of state-of-the-art, multimillion-pound youth centres, called Youth Zones, in the UK’s most disadvantaged areas. A network of 20 Youth Zones collectively reach over 60,000 young people every year, with a further three Youth Zones due to open in the next two years. Jamie will speak from his experience about the situation facing young people, the role youth centres play in supporting them to achieve their potential and the impact they have on young people’s outcomes.

Dr Tom Foley - Adjunct Associate Professor in the UCD School of Medicine

Tom is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the UCD School of Medicine and a Consultant Psychiatrist in the HSE. He is also The National Clinical Lead for the HSE CCR. Tom is also an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Newcastle University, where he is founder and Principal Investigator on the Learning Healthcare Project, a resource for those developing Learning Health Systems. Before moving back to Ireland in 2020, he was the Senior Clinical Lead for Data at NHS Digital.

Mr Mark Kavanagh - Senior Project Specialist with the Centre for Effective Services (CES)

Mark is a Senior Project Specialist with the Centre for Effective Services (CES), embedded within the HSE Child and Youth Mental Health Office. His work focuses on outcomes, data and evidence-informed service improvement, including development of the Child and Youth Mental Health Outcomes Framework and wider Learning Health System approaches. Previously, he was National Lead for Data and Reporting at Tusla – Ireland’s Child and Family Agency. Prior to returning to Ireland, he managed the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) in King’s College London, a major national health quality improvement programme and the single source of stroke data for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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