28 August 2026
We were delighted to welcome researchers, clinicians, students, and colleagues from across the UK to the launch of the AIM Digital Community in July 2026.
AIM (aim.mhid.org.uk) is a digital community aiming to build better psychological treatments for children and young people through:
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make the launch such a positive occasion. It was wonderful to see AIM met with so much enthusiasm and particularly exciting to see the breadth of interest in improving psychological treatments for children and young people.
If you weren’t able to join us — or would like to revisit the event — you can watch the launch webinar recording below:
One of our ambitions for AIM is to create a collaborative space that brings together people from different disciplines, professions, and parts of the country around a shared goal: developing more effective, accessible, and acceptable psychological treatments for children and young people.
The launch gave us a real sense of the potential for this community. We were joined by people from across the UK, representing a wide range of professional backgrounds and perspectives including Clinical Practitioners, Researchers, Lecturers, Students, Teachers, PPIE, Managers, Community Practitioners and more.
We were also delighted to include contributions reflecting different perspectives from across the child and adolescent mental health community — from people with lived experience to researchers and students. These contributions helped illustrate both the importance of improving mental health support for young people and the range of people and expertise needed to make meaningful progress.
At the heart of AIM is an interest in how understanding, measuring, and targeting the modifiable psychological mechanisms that maintain distress can help us develop better treatments for children and young people. The launch provided an opportunity to introduce this approach, showcase the resources available through AIM, and highlight some of the exciting work already happening across the field.
AIM has always been intended to be more than a collection of measures and resources. It is a living, evolving community, shaped by the people who use and contribute to it.
The enthusiasm surrounding the launch made us even more excited about what that community could become. We hope AIM will provide a space where researchers, clinicians, students, people with lived experience, and others interested in child and adolescent mental health can connect with relevant research and resources, share knowledge, and help accelerate the translation of research into meaningful improvements in care.
If you weren’t able to join us — or would like to revisit the event — you can watch the recording above, or explore the AIM Digital Community at aim.mhid.org.uk.
And this is only the start. Our next AIM event will take place in October, and we would love to welcome both familiar and new faces. Keep an eye out for more details soon!
Thank you again to everyone who joined us and to those who contributed to the launch. We look forward to continuing to grow the AIM community together.