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

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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.