Current studies

The MoRe (Mood Research) clinic is a North London NHS Foundation Trust research focussed clinic, funded by the Mental Health Translational Research Collaborative Mission (MH-TRC).

The MoRe clinic provides an initial assessment outlining treatment advice and research opportunities for service users with mood disorders, such as difficult-to-treat depression and bipolar disorder.

We are a non-emergency service. If you need an urgent response, we would advise using the urgent help page which can guide you to appropriate service or links for immediate or urgent help.

Who can be referred?
We accept referrals from individuals who are over 18 and who live in the Barnet, Camden Enfield, Haringey or Islington Boroughs. Service users must have a primary diagnosis of a current depressive episode of either unipolar or bipolar depression and are willing to consider being enrolled in research studies. The current depressive episode must be difficult to treat i.e. there has been no response to 2 or more treatment trials in the current episode of illness.

How to access this service
You can be referred to our service by your GP or another mental health treatment provider.  Please download the referral form and send to charlotte.mair2@nhs.net.

Once a patient has been referred to the MoRe clinic, referrals will be reviewed and discussed by a multidisciplinary team. We may need more information to see if the clinic is appropriate. If this is the case, a member of the team will contact the patient to complete a screening assessment. If at the end of this assessment the patient meets the criteria for the clinic, the referral will be accepted and a time will be arranged to be assessed by one of the clinic doctors. If the referral is declined, the patient will be signposted to alternative sources of help as appropriate.

What to expect
Once a referral is accepted, assessments will encompass a formal structured clinical interview, review of past treatments during current episodes, observer-rated questionnaires and self-rated questionnaires. Depending on capacity further assessments may be taken, such as computerized assessments and neuroimaging (electroencephalography).

Once the assessment has finished, the clinician will write up an assessment letter and provide to the GP. The assessment letter will outline key results from the assessment and will include; diagnosis, comparison of past treatment to guidelines, relevant self- and observer-rating results and advice for further treatments and signposting.

After this, the patient will be discharged from the clinic and ongoing care will only be provided through and in the context of a research study.

Community Navigator Trial
Testing new ways to help people with treatment resistant depression who are also experiencing feelings of loneliness by increasing social inclusion in community. Closed for recruitment.

CONTACT-GAD - BEH only 
To test the effectiveness of tailored ACT for reducing anxiety in older people with TR-GAD. 

CoComp - C&I only 
To identify potential neuro-cognitive mediators of psychotherapeutic interventions for depression. Closed for recruitment.

MATILDA — C&I only

ART-CARMA - BEH only 
The study of cardiometabolic risk factors and medication adherence in people with ADHD. Closed for recruitment.

PETAL 
To develop a personalised treatment package for aggressive challenging behaviour in people with Learning Disabilities.
 

ASCEnD - C&I only

To examine the clinical and cost-effectiveness of Aripiprazole/sertraline combination in comparison with quetiapine for the treatment of bipolar depression. 

ERiC
To evaluate the clinical utility of Mentalization Based Treatment (MBT) for children with mixed emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Wellbeing While Waiting
To evaluate the effectiveness of social prescribing in CAMHS.

SOCIAL — C&I only

Exploring impairment in theory of mind associated with decline in social functioning in Alzheimer's disease

Funded by the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit programme.

Read more about Feasibility trial of remotely delivered Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) for families of children with LD on fundingawards.nihr.ac.uk

ASsuRED 
Improving outcomes in patients who self-harm by adapting and evaluating a brief Psychological Intervention in Emergency Departments. 

Finch - C&I only
To develop and test an intervention to prevent compulsory readmission and develop self-management skills among people who have been compulsorily detained under the Mental Health Act.

moreRESPECT 
To trial an intervention designed to promote sexual health for people with severe mental illnesses and to assess its clinical and cost effectiveness.

ERiC - BEH only
To evaluate the clinical utility of Mentalization Based Treatment (MBT) for children with mixed emotional and behavioural difficulties. 
 

Whilst behavioural difficulties in childhood can have a lasting impact, parenting programmes have been shown to make a real difference in families’ lives. This study is looking at personalised approaches to the treatment of behavioural difficulties in children. In this project we will work with parents to develop a programme which is tailored to parents’ and children’s needs, and find out whether this works better than current parent training. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is leading on a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) programme grant in collaboration with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College London, the University of Reading, the University of Liverpool and University College London.

Why are we doing this research?

We want families to be able to access the best support possible. NICE guidelines recommend group parent training programmes for parents of these children. We are interested in understanding how these group parenting programmes help families whose children have some problems with their behaviour. While these groups are helpful for the majority of children, some children may still have behaviour problems after their parents complete training.

What are we doing?

In this project we will work with parents to develop a personalised programme tailored to parents’ and children’s needs, and find out whether this works better than current parent training.

How are we doing this?

We are asking families who take part in parenting groups if they would like to participate in our research by doing some assessments and interviews. We complete these before, after and three months following parents attendance at the groups, to determine how the groups have helped each family. We also want to speak to some of the parents in further interviews and understand which aspects of the group they found helpful or unhelpful, to inform the design of a personalised programme. 

Funding provider

This research has been funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research

Our partners

• University of Reading
• South London and Maudsley
• UCL
• University of Liverpool
• King's College London

Practice Research in Child Welfare (PRiCe) lab is a research group led by Dr Philip Archard and is closely connected to two of our doctoral programmes in social work and social care, and child, community, and educational psychology.  

PRiCe focusses on research in child and adolescent mental health and child welfare, with an emphasis on qualitative research methods, particularly those informed by ideas from psychoanalysis, and practitioner-initiated and service-initiated research.  

The lab’s work also involves researching the research itself, examining the conceptualisation of research that is close to professional practice in health and social care service settings. This process fosters a critical learning environment for doctoral researchers and supports building research capacity by equipping future graduates to lead research and knowledge exchange activity in the field.   

What we do

Current and recently completed doctoral projects linked to PRiCe include studies on social worker experiences in child and adolescent mental health services and child protection social work, the needs and experiences of foster carers, and trauma-informed practice and suicide postvention in secondary school settings.  

Dr Archard is also engaged in research focussing on child welfare inequalities and mental health, and assessment practices in child and adolescent mental health service settings.  

Who we work with

We work with researchers across disciplines, based at different institutions nationally and internationally (e.g., at the Centre for Forensic and Family Psychology, University of Nottingham, the Dynamic Psychology Laboratory, University of Naples Federico II, and the School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley).  

We’re keen to hear from frontline professionals and services, as well as other researchers who are interested in the use of qualitative psychosocial research methods in child and adolescent mental health.  

Contact us

If you would like to collaborate with us or find out more about our work, please get in touch.  

GLAD
To explore genetic predictors of depression and anxiety disorders.

Pharmacogentics in Mental Health - C&I only 
To see if genetic testing could be useful for patients who are going to be given psychiatric drugs as treatment for their mental illness.

Funded by What Works for Children’s Social Care.

Read moreabout Watch Me Play! on www.cardiff.ac.uk