The Sandbox: VR iCBT for Children and Young People (CYP) in South Staffordshire

沙盒：青少年虚拟现实iCBT是一项为期六个月的可行性研究，旨在确定是否值得进一步研究和投资，为13-24岁的年轻人创建认知行为疗法(CBT)。从2019年到2021年，儿童和青少年心理健康服务的转介增加了81%，同期儿童和青少年的紧急和危机护理转介增加了59%。NHS正在寻找解决方案来应对这种巨大的需求增长。对于一些儿童和年轻人(CYP)来说，一个信息和练习计划，帮助他们了解自己的感受，并建立他们自己的弹性(CBT)是他们所需要的，以帮助他们感觉更好。对于其他人，CBT可以与一对一治疗相结合。如果个体是神经多样性的(自闭症或其他神经学上非典型的思维或行为模式)，获得心理健康支持的斗争就会更加困难。通常需要等待神经多样性疾病的诊断，以及他们精神健康问题的诊断和治疗。在大脑，我们为CYP Online提供NHS心理健康服务，包括基于互联网的CBT(ICBT)。我们通过广泛使用和验证的评估工具YP-CORE来评估个体的心理健康状况和改善。我们的iCBT在CYP中非常受欢迎，特别是那些神经多样性的人。多种多样的年轻人对这些在线练习感到兴奋，他们会快速连续地完成练习，并在需要时进行复习。我们看到所有年轻人的心理健康都得到了改善，超过了标准服务的预期结果。我们对虚拟现实技术的潜力感到非常兴奋，虚拟现实技术可以解决年轻人心理健康方面的一些最大挑战，并使生活变得更好。通过将我们的iCBT模块调整为通过VR头戴式耳机使用，CYP沉浸在一个虚拟世界中，不受干扰，专注于他们的锻炼，改善他们的心理健康，同时享受乐趣。我们已经将iCBT的一个模块用于VR，并希望与NHS的利益相关者和年轻人一起测试一个潜在的VR iCBT项目的实用性、成本和可接受性。在这个项目结束时，我们将对未来的发展做出决定，并制定如何实现这一目标的大致计划。

The Sandbox: VR iCBT for Young People is a six-month feasibility study to establish if further research and investment are worthwhile in the creation of a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Young People aged 13-24 years.The increase in referrals to Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services has increased by 81% from 2019 to 2021, and there has been a 59% increase in urgent and crisis care referrals for children and young people during the same period. The NHS is seeking solutions to cope with this massive increase in demand.For some children and young people (CYP) a program of information and exercises which helps them to understand how they are feeling, and build their own resilience (CBT) is all they need to help them feel better. For others, CBT can be combined with one-to-one therapy. If the individual is neurodiverse (autism or other neurologically atypical patterns of thought or behaviour), the struggle to access mental health support is harder. There is usually a wait for a diagnosis of the neurodiverse condition as well as a wait for diagnosis and treatment of their mental health problem. This is further compounded by the individual's challenges in direct communication with others.At Cerebral, we provide NHS mental health services for CYP online, including internet-based CBT(iCBT). We assess individual mental health status and improvement through a widely-used and validated assessment tool, YP-CORE.Our iCBT has been very popular with CYP, especially those who are neurodiverse. Neurodiverse young people have been excited by the online exercises, completing them in rapid succession, and reviewing them when needed. We are seeing improvements in all young people's mental health which exceeds expected outcomes from standard services.We are hugely excited about the potential for Virtual Reality technology to tackle some of the biggest challenges in young people's mental health and transform lives for the better. By adapting our iCBT modules to be used through a VR headset the CYP is immersed in a virtual world, free of distractions, to focus on their exercises, improving their mental health, whilst having fun.We have already adapted one module of iCBT for VR, and want to test the practicality, cost, and acceptability of a potential program of VR iCBT with NHS stakeholders and young people.At the end of this project, we will have a decision about future development and an outline plan of how this would be done.