HeadStart - Building Young People’s Resilience to Support Their Mental Health and Wellbeing

Introduction

This report shows how the HeadStart partnerships supported young people’s mental health and wellbeing in schools and communities across England. It focuses on early achievements of the programme and illustrates how the partnerships were working to prevent more serious mental health issues from developing. The findings aim to inform practitioners, decision-makers and researchers interested in young people’s mental health.

Methodology

The research examines data and research findings from HeadStart. The evaluation looks at how the programme supported young people and how local partnerships ran activities and support services.

Findings

The research found that in three years to summer 2019, the programme had given over 131,000 young people opportunity to access wellbeing support. This included safe spaces in schools and different resilience-building activities.

Over 18,500 young people had attended at least one additional support session, such as counselling or peer mentoring.

The research also found that:

• the programme led to a greater understanding and awareness of what resilience is and why it’s important for young people’s wellbeing

• whole-school approaches to wellbeing can help to shift mindsets and practices

• co-production was central to all aspects of the programme – young people helped to make decisions about what services should be offered

• more people started to see mental health and wellbeing as a shared responsibility, going beyond the school pastoral team to include the whole community

Considerations

The report provides early learning from the programme. Evidence reflects delivery in selected areas. Results may vary depending on:

• local services

• schools

• community partnerships