Announcements

An invitation to take part in a survey on children's psychological health.

Dear parents, 

My name is Meryl Westlake, I am currently studying for a PhD at University College London and the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. I am contacting you to see if you could support my team with our current recruitment for the BERRI study, led by principal researcher, Dr Saul Hillman.

My research is focused on understanding the psychological health of children living in residential homes in England using the BERRI questionnaire (www.berri.org.uk). To date, the BERRI has been widely and successfully used with more than 2000 carers working in residential children’s homes and it has recently been adapted for use by parents of children in the general population. 

The current study:

The study is exploring the psychological needs of adolescents in the general population from parents’ perspectives. It links to my wider research as I will investigate the psychological health of adolescents in the general population and how their needs compare to those of children living in residential homes. The study has ethical approval from UCL ethics committee (Ethics ID: 0389 052).

We are particularly keen to recruit parents of children with both high and low levels of psychological health need, to ensure our sample is representative of children in the general population. So, whatever your child’s needs might be, please do consider taking part.

What will your participation involve?

You will be asked to complete an online anonymous survey about your demographics and your child’s psychological health. We anticipate the study will take about 20 minutes.

What are the benefits for you?

In return, you can immediately generate a report based on your survey responses, which provides guidance about your child’s psychological needs and how to support them. This report can be used to communicate their needs to professionals. To date, we have received positive feedback from parents who have completed the study as they felt the reports helped them to better understand their child’s psychological needs.  

If you would like to take part and read more information about the study, please click the following link:

https://uclpsych.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9um9UfYGd2HX9gW 

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and considering taking part in the research. If you do not want to complete the study yourself but know of other parents who may benefit from taking part, please do share it with them.

Many thanks,

Meryl Westlake

(meryl.westlake.20@ucl.ac.uk)