Suicide in children and young people

Professor Nav Kapur is a Professor of Psychiatry and Population Health at the University of Manchester, UK and an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. He has spent the last 25 years researching suicidal behaviour, particularly its causes, treatment and prevention. He has led committees for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK including those developing guidelines for how all clinical staff should help people after self-harm.

He sits on the main advisory group on suicide for the Department of Health in England and directs national quality improvement work to prevent suicide. He is the lead author of Suicide Prevention (3rd Edition, Oxford University Press) and has published over 350 academic papers.

Professor Kapur was the 2021 recipient of the American Association of Suicidology Louis I. Dublin Award for lifetime achievement in suicide prevention and the 2021 International Association of Suicide Prevention Stengel Award for outstanding research.

Ann John, a public health trained former General Practitioner, is a Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry at Swansea University Medical School with a research focus on suicide and self-harm prevention and children and young people’s mental health. She is a Principal Investigator at the National Centre for Mental Health and Co-Director of DATAMIND, the Health Data Research UK Hub for Mental Health. She is the Strategic Lead for Mental Health Research Public Health Wales. During the pandemic Ann co-led a number of pivotal projects in the field including the Living Systematic Review.

Ann works across sectors translating research into evidence-based practice and policy to prevent suicide and self-harm. She played a key role in the development of Wales National Suicide and Self-harm Prevention Strategy, UK Cluster Guidance, UK Postvention Framework in Higher Education and leads the Suicide Information Database-Wales. Ann chairs the National Advisory Group to Welsh Government and co-chairs the Cross- Government Group on suicide and self-harm prevention and is the national lead for suicide prevention for Public Health Wales. She has worked on a number of major TV storylines from Eastenders, Coronation Street to the BBC’s This is Going to Hurt enabling the responsible depiction of suicidal behaviors. She is regularly called upon to provide advice to both Wales and UK Government.

Professor Prathiba Chitsabesan is National Clinical Director for Children and Young People’s Mental Health, NHS England.

Prathiba is a Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry working in a large mental health and community trust (Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust). Lead consultant since 2005, she became Clinical Director in 2015 and continues to work clinically within a community child and adolescent mental health service in South Manchester. She graduated from Medicine (University of Manchester) before completing her MD, inspiring her interest in the needs of children and young people in contact with the criminal justice system.

Over the last 12 years she has published in journals and books and contributed to national reports and guidance for the Youth Justice Board and Office of the Children’s Commissioner.

She has contributed to the development of the Comprehensive Health Assessment Tool across the youth justice secure estate for the Department of Health and NHS England and continues to be research active as an Honorary Research Fellow and Lecturer for the Offender Health Research Network (University of Manchester).

As a clinical advisor (Greater Manchester and East Cheshire Strategic Clinical Networks), she has also promoted the development of regional clinical guidance across Greater Manchester.

Professor Dennis Ougrin graduated from medical school in Ukraine in 1998 and came to the Maudsley Hospital in the UK to undertake his postgraduate training in child and adolescent psychiatry. He worked as a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist establishing and leading intensive community care services at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. He also led the Master of Science (MSc) in Child and Adolescent Mental Health at King’s College London and acted as the Chief Investigator of major National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Medical Research Council (MRC) and charity-funded studies in the field of self-harm and intensive community care services. In 2018-2020 he was the editor-in-chief of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, a key clinical journal in child and adolescent psychiatry, psychology and allied disciplines. In September 2021 he was appointed to lead the Youth Resilience Research Unit at Queen Mary University of London.

He led a programme of global mental health studies aimed at developing community mental health services in Ukraine and other Low-and Middle-Income Countries. His main professional interests include the prevention of Borderline Personality Disorder and effective interventions for self-harm in young people.

Professor Ougrin is the author of Therapeutic Assessment, a novel model of assessment for young people with self-harm. He also developed and tested an Intensive Community Care Service model for young people with severe psychiatric disorders called Supported Discharge Service. The model was evaluated in the first randomised controlled trial of an intensive community care service for young people in the UK. The results of the trial informed the development of intensive community care services in the UK and internationally. He has expertise in conducting randomised controlled trials in the fields of psychological therapy and mental health service models. 

He also works on developing modular psychotherapeutic interventions for self-harm and on understanding the pathophysiology of self-harm in young people.

Educated at Durham and Newcastle Universities, Dick has been English teacher, rugby coach and, for almost 23 years, a headteacher. He is also a father and grandfather! He has spoken at over 450 schools, businesses, universities and conferences around the world about his passion for the emotional and mental health of young people and he has strong views both about how our education system needs to change and about the evolving needs both of young people and society at large.

Dick is an instructor for Mental Health First Aid, a speaker for the Charlie Waller Trust and attended an ASIST course focusing on suicide intervention. Dick has appeared on BBC Breakfast, ITN News, BBC Radio 5 Live and numerous local radio stations and gave a TEDx talk in 2015. He has a passion for all sport! (especially Fulham FC!), the Gallipoli Campaign and the American Civil War.

Jen has worked in the further education sector for twenty years, starting her career within the Student Services team in an inner-city college in Nottingham, before joining a national student membership organisation with a focus on organisational development, learner voice strategy and further education policy. In her current role at the Association of Colleges, Jen is the Area Director for the East and West Midlands, supporting college senior leaders and governors to navigate sector and local education priorities. She is also the Senior Policy Lead for mental health, championing the voice of colleges within emerging policy and campaigning for resource and system improvement for mental health in further education. She is a qualified counsellor, with ten years’ service within higher education and community organisations.