The 2026 Annual National Forensic Psychiatry Trainee Conference took place in London on 24th May and was exciting for me because Crime in Mind had offered a prize for the best poster featuring new research. Five of those attending presented, between them, a wealth of material. The titles and contributors are listed in full below. Some had gathered colleagues around them for the work; some work had been achieved almost single handedly. All had been driven to an extent by some challenging aspect of practice, imperfect understanding or knowledge or recognition of problems in delivering good enough treatment. Most viewed their studies as building blocks towards full studies or continuing service improvement. All presented beautifully on paper and in person.
- Lorna Almond is leading a team conducting a sophisticated, pre-registered systematic review, to fill explicit gaps in how childhood maltreatment and conduct disorder relate. As for all good posters, this provides a preliminary report, but even so the potential of the review is clear. This must be a precursor to a journal publication. Of most interest to me was that she had found some longitudinal, prospective studies so that she should be able to go beyond simply saying that harms to children and conduct disorder are linked. To what extent do the harms trigger something that affects the behaviour of the children? To what extent do ‘troublesome children’ contribute to others ill-treating them? – not knowingly of course. Behavioural interactions are bidirectional and whilst, always, adults have to own responsibility in interactions with children, true understanding of those interactions is likely to be more productive in safeguarding than recognition of simple statistical associations.
- Leonardo Outes, separately, had started considering the importance of taking developmental stage into account in forensic mental health assessments of young people. Of all the posters this had perhaps the most engaging layout, setting out a thought provoking vision, mapping from knowledge about child and adolescent development, through current assessment components and highlighting practice and evidence gaps, their consequences and ways forward. As a thought piece this is exemplary and I hope it feeds into research.
- Leonardo Outes, in a second poster, reported a trial of new practice and its preliminary evaluation that is broadly linked to his developmental interests – working with the family unit after a member has been admitted to a secure hospital. The poster is strong on recognition of need and describes the development of a pilot family support clinic within one unit. Preliminary outcome measures reflect mainly family satisfaction, but that finding is a vital preliminary to full scale introduction and evaluation.
- Gunjan Sharma, a previous winner, also developed a service evaluation, focussing on the interface between forensic psychiatry and general adult psychiatry, an area of growing concern. What is it that drives the referrals? What, realistically, can forensic psychiatry offer? What should it offer, given its relatively restrictive approaches? What really lies behind the plethora of referrals that drove the interest? This was, essentially, a qualitative study, but highly effective in identifying themes in the area – perceived need for containment, delineation of roles and responsibilities and the gaps in services that jeopardise truly satisfactory resolution.
- Damandeep Kharoud’s focus was on quality improvement in an aspect of clinical practice, but of a quality that, with just a little development, it could become worthwhile research. Because this work is at an early stage, it is not possible to say much more than that there is a good case for implementation of a clinical guideline on monitoring physical health and that when a small number of staff know that they are being monitored on following it, compliance with the guideline first improves and is then sustained for at least six weeks. We know that patients in a forensic mental health setting have a higher rate of physical ill-health than the general population, and maybe than other more free ranging patients, so it is vital to evidence ways of improving that.
- Alaa Abdelhalim worked almost solo, observing, then defining a problem, before offering a simple solution, trialling it, and then, recognising that preliminary findings on one small unit, however positive, are not enough. She found that introduction of a digital prescribing tracker halted prescribing lapses and ensured timely prescriptions, pleasing staff and safeguarding patients – but only within a standard community mental health team. In her next step and second poster, she documented the greater difficulty of introducing such an intervention in forensic mental health services. No, forensic staff are not just being awkward, there is a new set of considerations to be resolved before trial implementation. This is undoubtedly a continuing story. It is remarkable that she has achieved so much alone. Now she should begin to engage with others to develop her research skills and assure the best possible development of her work.
It seems invidious to award a prize, but we said we would, so we must. I found my contribution to the final decision very hard. It would be good to ask them all back in a year, and again in two years to find out what happened next – and that in itself is an accolade for all. Finally, Laura Almond was named as runner up and Alaa Abdelhalim as this year’s winner.
The posters
- Alaa Abdelhalim, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust. Zero Severe Delays: A digital prescribing system transforming safety and timeliness in CMHT
- Alaa Abdelhalim, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust. WHEN “SIMPLE” ISN’T SIMPLE! Translating Digital Prescribing from CMHT to Forensic CMHT
- Lorna Almond, Maria Dauvermann, John Tully, Joshua Lee, Stephane De Brito. Birmingham and Nottingham Universities.
- The Association between Childhood Maltreatment and Conduct Disorder: A Systematic Review and Three Level Random Effects Meta-Analysis
- Damandeep Singh Kharoud, Christina Lee, Jody Gowen, Matthew Hartley, Julia Padovani and Leonardo Outes. King’s College London and SLAM NHS Foundation Trust. Developing Antipsychotic Monitoring Procedures To Improve Adherence in Inpatient Forensic Services
Research can transform lives. We want to support discoveries about what helps people with mental disorder who have been victims of criminal behaviour, or perpetrators of criminal behaviour, and their families, and the clinicians and others who treat them and, indeed, the wider community when its members are in contact with these problems. More effective prevention is the ideal, when this is not possible, we need more effective, evidenced interventions for recovery and restoration of safety.
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