CV

Cathy Creswell is Professor of Developmental Clinical Psychology at the University of Reading, an Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist and
Joint Director of the University of Reading Anxiety and Depression in Young people (AnDY) research unit. She was awarded the British Psychological Society May Davidson award for outstanding contribution to Clinical Psychology within 10 years of qualifying and was the first clinical psychologist to be awarded an NIHR Research Professorship (2014-2019). Cathy has particular research and clinical interests in the development and treatment of anxiety disorders in children and young eople, and applies experimental, longitudinal, and clinical trial methodologies with children, in both community (including school) and clinical settings, with the ultimate aim of improving access and outcomes for children with these common conditions. In addition to academic publications, she has co-written self-help books for parents,
including 'Overcoming your child's fears and worries' (Little Brown), and a recent practice guide for clinicians, ‘Parent-Led CBT for Child
Anxiety: Helping Parents Help Their Kids’ (Guilford Press).

KEYNOTE ABSTRACT

Increasing access to psychological interventions for childhood anxiety disorders
Anxiety Disorders are the most common mental health problem across the lifespan. They create a huge personal burden for individuals and substantial economic burden for society. Anxiety disorders have a particularly early age of onset and often run a chronic course. Indeed, half of all people who experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their life will first experience those difficulties by the age of 11 years. Yet we have found that an extremely small proportion of children who experience significant and sustained problems with anxiety receive any sort of professional support, let alone support that has been shown to work. This talk will provide an illustration of the multiple barriers that families experience from the emergence of problems to the point at which children and families access support, in which families can fall through the holes and be left to struggle on unsupported. It will also describe our recent research that has clear implications for how to overcome the barriers families can face and instead empower families by providing the support they need to help them to help their children.