Children and young people

How can youth work raise awareness of mental wellbeing among young people?

How the message “everybody has mental health”, coupled with strong youth work-informed activities and approaches, helps young people understand their own and others’ mental health. Looking back over the second decade of the 21st century and the acceleration of mental health interest and activity in the UK, it is easy to forget that mental health and wellbeing have not always had such prominence. Beginning in 2009 and spanning five years, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Mental Health Foundation funded four local youth work-based partnerships (in Brighton and Hove, Fermanagh, Sheffield and the...

Why is focusing on relationships vital to improving young people’s mental health and wellbeing?

How young people’s relationships with trusted adults and peers can help them to flourish. In mental health, as in other areas of public and charity sectors, we tend to think in terms of 'services'. In the young people’s mental health and wellbeing sector, we often find ourselves speaking about Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) as if they were synonymous with the needs of young people. There is often a belief that only those with pronounced mental health difficulties will find their way to CAMHS, and that using CAMHS is evidence of having pronounced needs. Generally speaking...

How can co-production be made a reality in youth work-led mental health?

How real relationships, backed by supportive, resourceful management and funding, create the conditions for effective co-production. Within mental health, there are perennial rallying cries for people who experience mental health difficulties to have greater involvement in the creation of services that provide care, help and support. Termed ‘co-production’, this has been talked about more than actually carried out. Similarly, calls for greater availability of early interventions to prevent the escalation of mental health difficulties grow more strident every year, while complaints grow of...

How can youth work reduce stigma and isolation felt by young people with mental health difficulties?

How creating mental health and wellbeing-informed projects for young people with and without mental health difficulties normalises mental health.

How does mental health-informed youth work empower young people to make change happen?

How empowerment comes through the relationships that develop ‘through doing’.

How can mental health-informed youth work help young people?

How the ‘blended approach’ of Right Here, underpinned by young people’s involvement and strong relationships, generates positive outcomes for young people.

Resources

For practitioners, commissioners and funders.

About the authors

Susan Blishen and Mark Brown

About Right Here

Detailed information about the project.

Moving On to Secondary School

The move from primary to secondary education can be stressful for any young person, but those with learning disabilities or other special educational needs (SEN) are under even greater stress. This is because primary schools offer more predictability, usually with the same teacher and classroom throughout the year. The move to secondary school brings a lot of changes - different classrooms and different teachers for each subject, larger buildings spread over a campus, new travel arrangements and coping with support from unfamiliar teaching assistants. If the transition between primary school...