PROFESSOR, Clinical Psychologist, Lead Clinician and Head of Applied Psychology, Lothian Child and Mental Health Service. UNITED KINGDOM

Professor Richards has worked in Scotland as a clinical psychologist with children and young people for over 20 years. Prior to moving to Scotland she worked for the University of Birmingham and South Birmingham Health Authority.

For the past 15 years she has been Lead Clinician and Head of Applied Psychology in the Lothian Child and Adolescent Mental Health  Service. She is the chair of the Scottish CAMHS Lead Clinicians network and CAMHS advisor to the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Division  of the Mental Health Directorate at the Scottish Government. She is also an Honorary Professor in the Centre for Applied Developmental Psychology at the University of Edinburgh.  Professor Richards has always been interested in developing training and resources for those working with children and young people  examples of resources developed include, healthy reading resources for public libraries and websites for young people and those caring for them

Other work includes :

• External advisor for ‘Preventing Depression and Improving Awareness through Networking in the EU (PREDI-NU)’ intervention programme  
• Contributor to Expert Reference Group in the development of ‘The CAMHS Competence Framework’
• Action lead for action 19, 21 and 22 of the Mental Health Strategy in Scotland.