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 from The Children's Society will be presenting latest findings from their freshly published 'Good Childhood Report'. Each year The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Report explores what children and young people tell us about how their lives are going. Their collective insights helped us understand more about why children and young people respond to wellbeing questions in the way that they do, and what needs to change so that the declining trends in children’s wellbeing are reversed. For their 15th Good Childhood Report, The Children's Society married quantitative and qualitative data and worked with a group of Young Advisors to focus on the theme of people and places of belonging. In this session, Delphine will share highlights from the recently published 2026 report and reflect on its findings, insights and recommendations.

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

Download the PDF version of this agenda.

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 (he/him) 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 (he/him) 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 (he/him) 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.

Dr. Jenna Jacob - Research Lead at CORC

Jenna (she/her) has extensive experience designing and delivering service evaluations across children and young people’s mental health settings, working with commissioners, providers and young people to generate actionable learning for policy and practice. This most recently included evaluations of three national Vanguards supporting children and young people living in complex situations. Her wider work focuses on improving how mental health and wellbeing outcomes are understood, measured and used in practice, with particular expertise in patient-centred and personalised outcome measurement, including collaborative goal setting. Jenna is especially interested in ensuring that children and young people’s own priorities and experiences shape definitions of meaningful change.

Nick Tait - Programme Manager for CORC

As Programme Manager for CORC, Nick (he/him) works directly with members as well as on a range of projects in collaboration with CORC partner organisations. Nick joined CORC after working in schools, first as a teacher and then as head teacher of a large London primary school. Through his work with children he saw the importance of effective support for children’s mental health and wellbeing and worked with partner organisations to develop practice in school. He is particularly interested in the wellbeing of the most vulnerable children.

Chris Klays - CAMHS patient/carer engagement and participation lead at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (North Yorkshire, York, and Selby).

Chris (he/him) is the CAMHS patient/carer engagement and participation lead at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (North Yorkshire, York, and Selby). Chris has 5 years’ experience working in the Third/Public sector leading on a range of mental health initiatives for young people, including website and podcast development. He comes from having a lived experience background and now works in the service he accessed when growing up. He believes that meaningful participation can create both long-term benefits for the individuals involved, and efficiencies and improved care within services.

Delphine Chollet - Senior Researcher at The Children's Society

Delph (they/them) is a Senior Researcher at national children’s charity The Children’s Society, where they work as lead researcher to The Good Childhood Report, an annual assessment of UK children and young people’s subjective wellbeing. Delph is a child-focused mixed-methods researcher with experience of designing, delivering and leading research projects within civil service and the third sector. Their research has focused on child wellbeing, children’s social care and child protection, and has included co-production with children and young people. A commitment to inclusion, equity and diversity is evident throughout their research.

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