Mapping the Unknown: Designing the First National Landscape Study of Children’s Intensive Mental Health Care

Synopsis

Children and adolescents requiring psychiatric intensive care represent one of the most complex and least understood groups within mental health services. Despite increasing clinical demand and acuity, there remains no comprehensive national picture of how these services are structured, designed, or experienced.

This presentation briefly introduces the National Association of Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (NAPICU) and its role in advancing standards and knowledge across intensive mental health settings. It then presents the “Landscape Study,” a collaborative research project with the University of Salford, aimed at systematically mapping children and adolescent psychiatric intensive care provision across the UK.

The session will outline the study’s design, methodology, and the development of a national questionnaire, with a focus on how service design, environment, and care models intersect. Attendees will gain early insight into an emerging evidence base intended to inform future service development, policy, and design innovation in this critically important area.