Mental Elf Blog post. It is now an increasingly well accepted truism that the origins of mental illness often lie in childhood and adolescence. Most psychological and psychiatric problems present for the first time before the age of 18 years, and even for the remainder there is often a link to important early life risk factors, such as child maltreatment and other psychological or economic adversities.

However, acknowledging that, and doing something useful about it to prevent future mental health problems are different things. To be able to successfully intervene early we need to be able to offer interventions that are effective, acceptable to patients/service users and cost-effective. We also need to work out who these interventions should be offered to.