Wednesday 2nd April: (The Birches) GENERAL MEETING
GUEST: Professor Judith Trowell
We were delighted to welcome Professor Judith Trowell to our April meeting at The Birches.
Judith is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic,
London and also spends part of her week in Worcester at the newly set up Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Centre where she is Director.
Judith explained that her background and interest is in paediatrics. She trained as a
GP and spent 5 years in general practice before training in psychiatry. She has
also undertaken psychotherapy training and worked for the past 20 years at the
Tavistock Clinic. Most of her research has been involved with attachment and she
has used it as a research tool and theoretical tool. Judith said she uses the same
model as Dan Hughes in practice although she admitted wryly that Dan's theoretical
delivery is very charismatic.
She talked about the newly set up Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at
University College Worcester. This Centre aims to encourage the development of high
quality child and adolescent mental health services in Worcester and the West
Midlands. Judith explained about the lack of mental health resources in the West
Midlands and the lack of incentive to practise here. There are 18 vacancies in the
area for psychiatry but the lack of creative incentives in the way of being afforded
the opportunity to read and write papers and undertake research and training does
not encourage recruitment, retention and general good morale.
Her brief is to change the situation in the whole of the West Midlands and to this
end she is anxious to raise awareness of issues surrounding attachment and mental
health and transform the child and adolescent mental health service on offer in
this area. She is on the Strategic Health Authority Board and, with the national
framework coming out soon, she will be talking to lead service managers within the
health authority and social services.
Judith was instrumental in setting up Young Minds, a children's mental health charity,
and she has done a lot of work with toy and leisure libraries, the NSPCC and NCH in
the way of training and support.
Her easily accessible, empathetic approach and understanding of the problems so many
of us encounter in identifying and targeting help for our adopted children, particularly
within mental health, was heartening. As one of the country's leading child psychiatrists
we were pleased and flattered that Judith could spare the time in her busy schedule to
visit us and thank her for her interest in our group and for sharing her expertise.
Sue
WASGAP COMMITTEE
Back to Newsletter
Back to top
|
