Abstract
As the outgoing co-editors of Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, it is our great pleasure to welcome in the new co-editors, Anna Brazier and Michael Tarren-Sweeney, and to leave you the readers in their capable hands. They will introduce themselves below.
We have thoroughly enjoyed our time as co-editors, and in handing over, want to say our thank yous to everyone who worked with us in supporting the journal.
Thank you to you, our readers. Your continuing enthusiasm and support make this journal what it is.
Thank you to our authors, for taking the time to write about your practice and your research to further our development as scholar practitioners.
Thank you to our reviewers for giving so freely and generously of your time, to cast a kindly eye over manuscripts that invariably are strengthened through peer review.
Thank you to our dedicated editorial assistants who assist us with administration and the navigation of new technology.
Thank you to Sage – the management, marketing and production teams who continue to believe in the journal and its philosophical roots.
And finally a thank you to the editorial board, who continue to help steer the development and direction of the journal.
Leaving always brings a sense of loss, but we are happy to say we shall stay with the editorial board whilst our new co-editors get their feet under the rather large editorial table!
A journal for all of us around the world who work clinically with children and their families … it should reflect our observations experiences ideas views and approaches A quote from Bryan Lask, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry’s (CCPP’s) founding Editor
We are immensely proud to be taking over the editorship of a journal that we think continues to speak to child-focused clinicians across the world in a way that reflects our everyday dilemmas and challenges. We now have the exciting task of working with fellow members of the editorial board, our reviewers and our authors, to ensure that the journal continues to be – as former editor Bernadette Wren described in 2003 – ‘the most consistently lively, broad-ranging, thought- provoking, clinically relevant and readable journal in the field of child and adolescent mental health.’
Before we introduce ourselves, we first need to say a big thank you to CCPP’s outgoing editors, Rudi Dallos and Arlene Vetere. Over the past five years, Rudi and Arlene have worked tirelessly to maintain Bryan Lask’s original vision for this journal, and to expand its influence on child and family clinical practice and clinical scholarship. Under their leadership, the journal has maintained a strong multi-disciplinary focus; it has sought out articles from experienced clinicians who have not published previously; and it has increased its international coverage and readership. Indeed, the number and range of manuscripts submitted to the journal has steadily increased under their watch.
Now a little about ourselves! I, Anna Brazier, am a Clinical Psychologist and Systemic Psychotherapist with over 25 years experience of working in a range of children’s services in the UK National Health Service (NHS). I currently lead a paediatric psychology team where the work is focused on children, young people and families facing illness and disability. I have a special interest in training and supervision and work closely with the Clinical Psychology training course based at Cardiff University, where I teach and chair the supervisors committee. I joined the CCPP board in 1999 as book review editor; since then I have jointly edited special sections on chronic illness, organisations, ethics and supervision. Currently it is very common for clinicians to feel stretched by increasing demands, changing structures and values in organisations and financial constraints. It seems to me that it is more important than ever that we have a forum where we can share innovative and creative work across disciplines, in a way that gives voice to experience in practice.
I, Michael Tarren-Sweeney, am a Clinical Psychologist, epidemiologist and child developmental theorist. I am an Associate Professor of Child and Family Psychology at Canterbury University in New Zealand, where I teach postgraduate trainees through to board registration, and I also provide clinical services to government and charitable children’s agencies in Australia. Prior to academia I worked as a Psychologist for a little over a decade in a government child welfare agency. My life’s work has focused on the nature and causes of mental ill-health experienced by children and young people in care, and the implications this has for social care policy and practice, and for mental health services. What has excited me most about CCPP is its tradition of publishing multi-disciplinary and applied clinical research about our most vulnerable child and adolescent populations. I have had the good fortunate to be a member of the CCPP editorial board since 2010, following a stint as guest co-editor of a special issue on ‘Mental health services for children in care and those adopted from care’.
Together, we hope that our varied clinical backgrounds will complement each other, as well as complementing the diversity of backgrounds and experience brought by other members of the editorial board. We strongly believe that CCPP should continue to represent Bryan Lask’s vision of being, first and foremost, a ‘clinician’s journal’.
The editorial board continues to look at how the journal can best match this vision in our changing world, in terms of both the type of content that we publish, and the technology used to deliver that content. Over the last decade or so we have witnessed great advances in understanding the nature and determinants of child and adolescent development and mental ill-health – particularly from neuroscience, population-epidemiological and behavioural genetics research. However, the clinical implications and usefulness of this new knowledge are often not readily evident. It is increasingly difficult for clinicians to incorporate complex new knowledge and ideas into their everyday work. We plan to work with the editorial board on ideas for bringing contemporary research and debate to clinicians in a way that is both accessible and clinically relevant, for example through occasional commissioned ‘knowledge translation’ articles.
Another task we have set ourselves for the term of our editorship is to see how we might increase access to the journal by its primary target audience, the clinical workforce – particularly for those clinicians who are not able to access the journal through their workplace or a university library.
We aim to continue to build on what we believe is the journal’s unique contribution to clinical scholarship and look forward to working with Sage, the board and our contributors in our new roles.