This year’s been very exciting at GM.Digital, with new projects and new members of the team starting! The beginning of the year focused on writing up publications, Grant applications and preparing ethics forms and study documents.
In June 2024 the NIHR-funded project ‘Enhancing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Referrals 2’ (EN-CAMHS 2) started. The aims of this project are to: (1) develop a simple, clear way for children to get the right support in a timely fashion; and (2) solve problems identified in EN-CAMHS 1 and improve quality of referrals. This is one of the main projects within the unit at the moment. The team have made great progress in working with young people, parents/carers, referrers and professionals working within CAMHS to develop a digital referral tool, which we are planning to implement in some NHS CAMHS providers in the New Year!
Between September and October 2024 three new Research Associates – Benjamin Hookway, Isra Maygi and Finn Hughes, and two Digital Health Research Fellows – Marta Chmielowska and Maddie Ratcliffe joined the team. This helped us focus more on some of our already existing projects such as DATAMIND, drive recruitment into EN-CAMHS 2, develop our young person’s advisory group, Youth Connection and our Volunteer Digital Navigator program at the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH).
In November 2024, Prof Kathryn Abel and Dr Pauline Whelan (GM.Digital co-directors) and Heidi Tranter (GM.Digital Research Unit Manager) travelled to Kingston, Jamaica. This was to support Dr Whelan and Prof Dawn Edge (GMMH Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Research Unit Manager) with CaFI:Digital and understand more about the digital landscape and connectivity in Jamaica.
We built great connections with the University and healthcare teams in Jamaica, and are looking forward to seeing how we can collaborate in the New Year. We also managed to spend a couple of days exploring the beautiful island!
Overall, 2024 has been a great year at GM.Digital and we are very excited about what’s to come in 2025 – so watch this space!
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