Jo Carlowe Hello, welcome to the In Conversation podcast series for the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, or ACAMH for short. I’m Jo Carlowe, a Freelance Journalist with a specialism in psychology. Today, I’m interviewing Consultant Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Lovell, who is ACAMH’s Deputy Chair and Director of CPD and Training. Mark has been instrumental in the development of ACAMH’s new project, ACAMH Learn, which is an open access learning platform housing newly commissioned video content, together with podcasts from leading experts on a host of topics. The URL is a-c-a-m-h-l-e-a-r-n.org and in today’s podcast, Mark will tell us more about ACAMH Learn and its benefits. If you’re a fan of our In Conversation series, please subscribe on your preferred streaming platform, let us know how we did, with a rating or review, and do share with friends and colleagues. Mark, welcome, thank you for joining me. Can you start with an introduction about who you are and what you do? Dr. Mark Lovell Hi. So, yes, I’m the Deputy Chair of ACAMH and the Director for ContinuingProfessional Development and Training. In my day job, I’m a Consultant Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Psychiatrist working within the English National Health Service. And I’ve been involved with ACAMH for about 18 years now, having originally started as a Branch Committee Chair and worked my way through various roles, through to my current roles. Jo Carlowe So, ACAMH was founded in 1956, I believe. Can you say somethingabout ACAMH’s vision and mission, as I feel it would be helpful in setting the scene for the launch of ACAMH Learn? Dr. Mark Lovell ACAMH’s vision is “Sharing best evidence, improving practice,” which guides its mission of enhancing mental health and wellbeing for children, adolescents and young people, from birth through to age 25. ACAMH has been active as a not-for-profit charity for 68 years now, with both Clinicians and Researchers sharing evidence-based to improve clinical practice and outcomes. ACAMH Learn sits alongside three academic peer review journals the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Mental Health and JCPP Advances, and a portfolio of paid for educational events, both face-to-face and online, from branch events, masterclasses, through to ACAMH’s three international conferences, the Emmanuel Miller, Jack Tizzard and Judy Dunn Conferences. There’s a branch network throughout the UK and Ireland and ACAMH has helped Malta, Egypt and India set up their own versions of ACAMH. ACAMH has also supported the development of Special Interest Groups, including the incorporation of the Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Psychiatry Network. Jo Carlowe Thank you. So, as we’ve mentioned, ACAMH Learn launches. Mark, what is the core aim of ACAMH Learn? Why has it been created and why now? Dr. Mark Lovell The core aim is to educate a range of people, from parents, those that work with children in general and through to Clinicians and Researchers, about mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders in children, adolescents and young people. It was created to fill a gap in the market, with both clinical and academic content to provide a trustworthy online video-based learning platform with a focus on evidence-based practice. This had actually been a plan that has been in development for many years, with ACAMH historically hosting content on other platforms, such as YouTube and its own website. ACAMH then decided to expand its offer using charitable reserves. When the technology that the platform is based upon was actually developed, we felt that the time was right to develop a video platform using the right technologies. Jo Carlowe Before we talk more about the benefits of ACAMH Learn, I would like to talkmore generally about CPD. Why is Continuing Professional Development and Continuing Medical Education so important for child and adolescent mental health professionals and those who work with neurodevelopmental disorders? Dr. Mark Lovell So, Continued Professional Development or Continued Medical Education is pretty much the same thing. It’s the term that is used to describe a series of learning activities that professionals use to develop and maintain their clinical knowledge and practice. It’s about a process of continuous development as a Clinician. It’s really important because evidence and practice change over time, as the science proves and disproves established theories and practices. Also, practices change over time, with official guidance, professional expert opinion and also, societal changes. The CPD and CME contribute to the workforce improving incrementally over time, changing their practices, using better tools and stopping the use of tools or techniques that have been proven not to work or that can cause harm. Jo Carlowe Great, thank you. So, ACAMH Learn is open access. Mark, can you explain theimportance of making ACAMH Learn accessible? Dr. Mark Lovell So, the initial content of ACAMH Learn will be free. This is intentional, to allow a core level of knowledge about mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders to be available throughout the world. We acknowledge that there is a lot of biased or false information available, particularly on the internet and that ACAMH Learn aims to provide good quality, trustworthy, content for individuals to engage with. Much of the world can’t access education in this area, owing to the cost of accessing it, or that it’s often provided within particular countries and might be linked to time zones, for instance, for live events. So, we feel that though we’re a UK-based charity, our remit should go far wider than just the UK. Jo Carlowe Fantastic, great. Let’s get into the detail of ACAMH Learn. What will itencompass? Can you give us a, kind of, overview, a brief overview? Dr. Mark Lovell ACAMH Learn will contain audiovisual content coveringthe full range of mental disorders and neurodevelopmental conditions, as well as service delivery aspects, research methodology and situational or topic-based content, such as trauma or perhaps, you know, country-based content, that sort of thing. At launch, there’ll be about 50 newly commissioned videos and ACAMH’s archive of about 250 videos and podcasts. Jo Carlowe And my understanding is that ACAMH Learn’s content is going to be aimed at three levels, so introductory, in-practice and in-depth. Can you elaborate on each and why the content has been pitched in this way? Dr. Mark Lovell So, introductory level is for those with little or no knowledge of a topic.This might be for parents, Teachers, students, Social Workers or those with lived experience. The next level up in terms of complexity is the in-practice level, and this is for those that work generically within Child and Adolescent or Adult Mental Health Services with a focus on knowledge and practice. So, it’s a clinical level of knowledge. The in-depth level is for those that require additional expert learning, such as Clinicians with additional experience or knowledge or for Researchers. This level will contain much of the academic content, including the science and research summaries. So, we’ve pitched the content at three levels to allow individuals to either start at the simplest level and progress with their learning over time, or to allow those that already know where their knowledge is supposed to be at so they can engage with the appropriate content there. Jo Carlowe Mark, how easy is ACAMH Learn to navigate around? Can you describe some of the functions that will make for a smooth user experience and how inclusive is it? So, for example, will it be accessible for those who don’t have English as a first language and for those with neurodiversity? Dr. Mark Lovell So, the ACAMH Learn website runs alongside the acamh.org website. So,there’s two websites that have overlaps between them. The ACAMH Learn website was developed with a user testing group and the feedback that they gave allowed us to improve the learning experience. Transcripts are created in English. ACAMH Learn will also have the ability to record in different languages and to improve access and the website has been designed with recognised accessibility standards in mind. Jo Carlowe Great, and how will you ensure that ACAMH Learn is academically and clinically rigorous? Dr. Mark Lovell So, there are three parts to this. The first of these is that we’ve employeda Content Producer who is a Clinical Psychologist, so a Clinician, with experience of developing online learning in other countries. So, we’ve got an expert who’ll be helping produce the content with speakers. Secondly, the content is tagged using our own taxonomy to allow curated searching, and that is being done by a Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychology. So, we’re keeping the academic rigor within the site and how you search within it. And thirdly, the content is currently produced on invite only. So, we can ensure that the clinical and academic quality and credentials of the speakers are present. The speakers are recruited by the Content Producer and by myself, and we also have links to our academic journals, providing a platform for the dissemination of research that is published in our own journals. So, we have total control over who is currently involved in the content on ACAMH Learn. Speakers who volunteer content in the future will be checked in advance of any publication of any content on the site. Jo Carlowe I understand ACAMH Learn has some built-in elements to help users evidence their learning. Can you explain more and are there any other features of ACAMH Learn that you would like to highlight for our listeners? Dr. Mark Lovell So, to aid the learning experience and facilitate the evidence of whathas been learnt, particularly for things like professional registration purposes, ACAMH Learn remembers who you are and it remembers what you’ve done. So, it remembers a list of content watched, it produces Continued Professional Development or Continued Medical Education certificates. It saves progress on any video that you’ve watched, and it allows you to create a favourites list, and it will also, in the future, include knowledge tests to test out what you’ve learnt. Jo Carlowe And if listeners want to be involved in contributing content to ACAMH Learnor disseminating ACAMH Learn to their peers, how might they do this and where can they go to learn more? Dr. Mark Lovell So, if you want to be involved, you can contain – you can, sort of, contact either myself at mark.lovell@nhs.net, m-a-r-k-.-l-o-v-e-l-l-@-n-h-s-.-n-e-t, or Guido Entenberg, who is our Content Producer, who’s Guido, so G-u-i-d-o-@acamh.org. If you want to share content with others, you can do this directly from the ACAMH Learn website, either by sharing the whole content through links or through the ability to make shorter clips. You can also ask for advertising posters to be delivered to you by ordering those at a-c-a-m-h-store s-t-o-r-e .org. Jo Carlowe Brilliant, thank you. What future developments can weanticipate with ACAMH Learn? Dr. Mark Lovell We are planning on, sort of, exploring developing content in different languages, either in the primary source, so in a different language, or through translations. Some of those might be through professional Translators, but also, we might consider, sort of, translation programmes to allow that to occur in different languages. We’re also considering developing a Researcher hub for our Researchers to share video summaries of their peer review journal articles. We are also exploring options of partnering with other like-minded agencies. Jo Carlowe Finally, Mark, what is your take home message for our listeners? Dr. Mark Lovell I guess this comes down to three things. Watch out for the launch, engage in learning, consider contributing new content. Jo Carlowe Brilliant. Mark, thank you ever so much. That was a very helpful introductionto ACAMH Learn. For more details on Dr. Mark Lovell and ACAMH Learn, please visit the ACAMH website, www.acamh.org, and Twitter @ACAMH. ACAMH is spelt A-C-A-M-H, and don’t forget to follow us on your preferred streaming platform, let us know if you enjoy the podcast, with a rating or review, and do share with friends and colleagues.