The Michael Rutter Centre for Children and Adolescents is based at the Maudsley Hospital, a psychiatric hospital run by the National Health Service NHS.

It is an outpatient service for children with mental health issues, named after Professor Sir Michael Rutter, and has an international reputation for providing a range of services and specialist treatments that include art therapy rooms, psychology assessment rooms as well as video observation suites, where clinicians can work together in assessing and deciding treatment for individual cases. Facilities also include:

• Anxiety Disorders Clinic
• Conduct Problems Clinic
• Forensic Service for Young People
• Child Traumatic Stress Clinic
• Learning Disabilities Clinic
• Autism and Related Disorders Service
• Adoption and Fostering Clinic
• Neuropsychiatry Clinic
• Adolescent eating disorders service
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder clinic

The Maudsley Hospital was founded in 1907, to, (1) be exclusively for early and acute cases, (2) have an out-patients' clinic, (3) provide for teaching and research. A close reminder of the changes that have occurred in the provision

of mental health care is the Bethlem Royal Hospital - from where we get the term 'bedlam'.

In 1994 it was estimated that at least 10% of children suffering from mental health problems requiring specialist facilities but, only 1-1.5% of children were being referred. (Garralda, M.E. 1994)^[1]. Parry-Jones described Child Mental Health Services as the 'Cinderella Service' (Parry-Jones, W. 1992)^[2]. The Michael Rutter Centre for Children and Adolescents is the latest in a tradition of innovation established by the Maudsley Hospital specializing in the treatment of youngsters with mental health issues.

ReferencesEdit

1. ↑ Garralda, M.E. (1994) (3rd Edition) Primary Care Psychiatry. In: M. Rutter, E. Taylor and L. Herson (Eds) Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: Modern Approaches. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.
2. ↑ Parry-Jones, W. (1992) Management in the National Health Service in Relation to Children and the Provision of Child Psychiatric Services. ACPP Newsletter, 14(1):3-8.

• International reputation for specialist child and adolescent mental health services
• Contribution to research and development

External linksEdit

• South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
• Middlesex University's mental health history timeline
• Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
• The National and Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services within the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust