Department of Education professor receives lifetime contribution award 

Professor Kathy Sylva OBE,  Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Education, has been awarded the Michael Rutter Medal for Lifetime Contribution to Child and Adolescent Mental Health. 

The Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH) bestowed the award on Kathy in November and, in acceptance, she delivered the keynote lecture ‘The Role of Early Childhood Education in Supporting the Mental Health of Children’. 

Kathy said: “I was thoroughly delighted and touched to be recognised with this award. Many people think the Effective Provision of Preschool, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE) longitudinal study was solely about attainment; this is not true.  

“From early on the EPPSE investigators [Sylva, Siraj, Melhuish, Sammons and Taggart] showed that educational quality led to wellbeing and mental health outcomes, just as important as GCSEs but under-funded despite one in five young people having a mental health problem. 

“The impact of high quality pedagogy on wellbeing and self-regulation is a vitally important area to understand so that we can support children and young people in schools, that’s why I’m thrilled to have received this medal.” 

The ACAMH Awards aim to recognise high-quality work in evidence-based science, both in research and practice, in the field of child and adolescent mental health. 

Watch Kathy’s keynote speech on the ACAMH website.