📈 Top 5 blogs this month
1. Should we wait until age 13 before giving our kids a smartphone?
Two new studies from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development cohort find that the younger a child is when they get a phone, the higher their risk of depression, obesity and insufficient sleep over the following year. For families whose children already have a phone, the most actionable levers are limiting daily use and keeping the device out of the bedroom at night.
🤓 Read the BLOG by André Tomlin
🗣️ Join the LinkedIn CONVERSATION
2. CBT for depression in primary care: gold standard, or one option among many?
Does CBT really outperform other treatments for depression in primary care settings? A recent systematic review suggests patients may have more options than we think.
🤓 Read the BLOG by Harry Oldridge
🗣️ Join the LinkedIn CONVERSATION
3. Loneliness in adolescence and suicidal thoughts: is depression the link?
About 1 in 10 teenagers experience severe loneliness. A new 13-year study examines what this means for their future mental health and suicide risk.
🤓 Read the BLOG by a group of UCL MSc Students
🗣️ Join the LinkedIn CONVERSATION
4. When staff wellbeing programmes backfire: lessons from a systematic review of mental health ward interventions
Around 40% of mental health professionals experience emotional exhaustion, but do the interventions designed to help them actually work? A new review suggests the answer is more complicated than most ward managers would like.
🤓 Read the BLOG by Phil Baldry
🗣️ Join the LinkedIn CONVERSATION
5. Brief interventions after suicide attempts: does connection save lives?
Fifty years after Jerome Motto’s caring letters, this meta-analysis suggests brief interventions can help people through the high-risk period after a suicide attempt. However, we still don’t know how they work.
🤓 Read the BLOG by Laura Hemming
🗣️ Join the LinkedIn CONVERSATION
Recovery from depression: TMS is ready to go and can save the country money
After our series of successful #ElfHelp webinars on difficult to treat depression, bipolar disorder and student mental health, we now tackle the science and story of neurostimulation.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) offers hope for people with difficult to treat depression, i.e. those who have tried more than one antidepressant and not yet started to feel better. It's one of many treatments that we know work.
Not only is TMS safe and effective, it’s cost-effective, and was invented in the UK. So why isn’t it more widely available on the NHS?
Join leading UK researchers, clinicians and experts by experience to hear the story of this fascinating treatment and explore how we can build the case for better provision.
Join our webinar at 12pm on Wednesday 15th July.
🎟️ Get your free ticket now 🎟️
A better digital future for young people’s mental health?
In November 2025 we attended the Digital Youth x MindTech conference in London: Digital Risk, Resilience and Interventions: co-creating change in youth mental health. Our friends at the University of Nottingham had commissioned The Mental Elf to help disseminate the findings from this huge research programme focused on shaping a better digital future for young people’s mental health.
We've now published a series of video interviews on our YouTube channel and also created clips that have been disseminated across our social channels, including LinkedIn and Instagram.
🎥 Watch the Digital Youth videos now 🎥
Social Media Bans, Mental Health Messaging and Self-Diagnosis
Dr Lucy Foulkes from the University of Oxford discusses myths and research around adolescent mental health ahead of her public lecture at the British Association of Psychopharmacology Conference (Sunday 19th July).
She critiques the proposal to ban social media for under-16s, arguing that bans won't remove risks, may reduce teens' willingness to discuss online experiences, and ignore social media's benefits, especially for marginalised or isolated young people. Instead, she supports stronger regulation to make platforms safer.
🎧 Listen now to Lucy Foulkes on the BAP podcast 🎧
Improving Student Mental Health and Wellbeing: Nurture-University
ICYMI - the Nurture-U podcast series is now available wherever you listen to your podcasts: YouTube, Spotify, Apple. This fantastic student mental health project led by Prof Ed Watkins from the University of Exeter has loads of useful findings and practical implications for anyone working in student mental health.
🎧 Listen now to the Nurture-U podcast 🎧
🌳🌤️🍄 Commission The Mental Elf to share your research
We help researchers share evidence through social media, podcasts, videos, webinars and more. Right now we're working with research groups across the country to disseminate their new research and maximise their reach and impact.
You can commission our expert team or write us into your next grant application as your dissemination partner.
🎗️ Contact us now and get yourself some #ElfHelp.
🔗 elfi.sh/help
📧 andre.tomlin@nationalelfservice.net
