The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)
- A Systematic Approach to Mental Child Health

SDQ Workshop
Thursday March 17, 2016
Aarhus University 

Over the last decade supporting mental child health has become an area of high societal priority. The challenges of mental well-being are very complex and call for a need to strengthen and develop close collaboration between practice and research. It is essential to support a common understanding of how to evaluate and monitor mental child health.

The Danish SDQ/DAWBA secretariat and the Aarhus University Network of Mental Child Health have the pleasure to invite all interested parties to a workshop about the challenges of measuring child mental health through standardized assessment tools. Our main focus will be the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) developed by professor Robert Goodman, Kings College London.  

 

PROGRAMME

09.30-10.00:	Breakfast and networking
10.00-10.20:	Introductions - Carsten Obel, Aarhus University
10.20-10.35:	Is Denmark the Black Swan of Mental Child Health? - Robert Goodman, Kings College
10.35-10.55:	What is a normal SDQ? Intros by Sonja Heyerdahl (RBUP, Norway) and Carsten Obel (AU)
10.55-11.15:	Can SDQ be used for follow up and how does SDQ change over time? Intros by Mette Lausten (SFI) and Robert Goodman (Kings College, UK)
11.15-11.45:	Coffee
11.45-12.05:	How do we get the best out of more informants? Intros by Sonja Heyerdahl (RBUP, Norway) and Mette Lausten (SFI)
12.05-12.25:	Is there a potential for the use of SDQ at group level? Intros by Carsten Obel (AU) and Robert Goodman (Kings College, UK)
12.25-12.45:	How can we use SDQ to link the work in the primary and secondary sector? Intros by Niels Bilenberg (SDU) and Robert Goodman (Kings College, UK)
12.45-13.30:	Lunch
13.30-14.15:	A Danish status for the use of SDQ - Research and Practice Perspective - Niels Bilenberg (SDU) and Carsten Obel (AU)
14.15-14.45:	Panel debate
14.45-14.55:	Goodman Perspectives
14.55-15.00:	Final remarks by Carsten Obel

Download programme in Danish (pdf)
Download programme in English (pdf) 

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

The SDQ is one of the best documented broad band standardized measure of mental child health. Since Robert Goodman’s first publication of SDQ in 1998 and the Danish translation in 2001, the SDQ has been used extensively worldwide. Denmark, Norway and the UK have used the SDQ most frequently in clinical practice and research compared to other countries. A lot has happened since the initial introduction. The SDQ is now offered in online versions making it easier to fill out and analyze, it is used in a variety of settings and has been documented extensively in scientific journals. This calls for an occasion to evaluate the use of the SDQ and how to improve the interaction between practice and research.

Presentations 
We are happy to invite professionals and researchers to exchange their experiences with using the SDQ and discuss future potentials with Robert Goodman, who will visit Denmark for this special occasion. Sonja Heyerdahl (Senior Researcher Emerita at Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Oslo, Norway), Niels Bilenberg (Professor at University of Southern Denmark), Mette Lausten (Senior Researcher at The Danish National Centre for Social Research), and Carsten Obel (Professor Aarhus University) will contribute with presentations of uses and potentials of the SDQ in a Nordic context.

We hope that users of SDQ in municipality practice as well as researchers will join the workshop and contribute to the discussion.

The workshop will be in english.

Venue:
Aarhus Unviersity, AIAS Auditorium building 1632, 1. floor
Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B
8000 Aarhus C

Fee: 0,- DKK
No-show-fee: 500 DKK

Please notice that we have a no show fee at 500 DKK. Remember to send your cancellation no later than March 14 2016.

REGISTRATION
(Deadline for registration March 14, 2016)

The workshop is arranged in collaboration with Centre for Collaborative Health at Aarhus University.

Contact information

Signe Herbers Poulsen, Acadamic Coordinator 
Danish SDQ/DAWBA Secretariat
E-mail: signe.h.poulsen@au.dk 

Karen Katrine Svendsen, Coordinator
The AU Network of Public Mental Child Health
E-mail: kasv@ph.au.dk