ABOUT THE BRANDON CENTRE

AUDIT AND OUTCOME EVALUATION

Over 13 years ago we initiated a programme for evaluating mental health outcome at the Centre. As a result of publications in professional journals and presentations at conferences and workshops the programme has contributed to the development of evaluation methodology in clinics in the NHS and in the voluntary sector working with troubled young people. We have collected data on over 1400 young people that have used the psychotherapy service.

The Brandon Centre applies three different approaches in auditing the contraceptive service and psychotherapy service. Firstly, we collect data on the characteristics of our users that help us to understand whether our services are reaching our target population, particularly young people who are hard to reach and difficult to treat. Secondly, we find out how well psychotherapy is working by evaluating mental health outcome. We use reliable and valid methods of measuring the functioning of young people and use different sources of information on the young person's functioning, including information from the young person, their therapist and a significant other in their life such as a parent, friend, teacher or partner.

This evaluation of mental health outcome involves making these assessments at the beginning of treatment, during treatment, at the end of treatment and at repeated follow-ups after treatment has ended. Finally, we interview young people in order to elicit their views about the service they receive and their ideas about where we might make improvements.

What we found when we followed up young people that remained in psychotherapy for 1 year

The average change in the level of emotional and behavioural problems presented by young people having psychotherapy at the Brandon Centre was as follows:

Youth Self Report (self reports) (Number=159)
Internal refers to anxiety/depression, being withdrawn and physical problems without a known medical cause such as eating problems. External refers to delinquency, rule breaking behaviour, and aggression. The cutoff between the clinical and non-clinical range is 60.

Significant Other Report/Young Adult Behaviour Checklist (N=50)

Therapist Reports (N=112)