Young peoples wellbeing report

Much of the work going on to address the wave of mental ill-health helps young people after a problem starts; despite significant increases in funding, demand continues to outstrip supply.

There are many societal issues which affect young people’s mental health - bullying, body image, poor use of social media, unhelpful educational pressure, etc – and consequently a lot of young people are struggling. Healthwatch suggest that they need to be bold and to believe that together we (professionals, young people, parents, etc) can achieve a cultural shift that enables the mass of our young people to thrive, not just survive. A thriving young person is much more able to cope when a personal challenge hits – divorce, death, illness, bullying - than one who lives in a permanent state of struggling.

A key part of this work is to really understand the lives of our young people. Why do they feel under pressure and how can it be alleviated? When the chips are down, what are their coping strategies and why do young people make unhealthy or healthy choices? Who influences their choices and why are some poorer coping strategies seen as normal/appropriate e.g. self harm. How can we encourage young people to choose healthy coping strategies?

Traditional research methods - surveys and focus groups – are not up to this delicate and deeply personal task. There is ample evidence that what people say they will do and what they actually do are two different things. Across the system, we need to learn new techniques of in-depth ethnographic research – to really understand drivers of young people’s behaviour and decision making – and to share our learning around the system to effect change.

Young people are a key part of the solution – not just on an individual basis – but also on a collective basis and in wider society. We need to engage the creativity and energy of thousands of young people across Surrey to help keep themselves and their peers mentally (and physically) well, having belief in their ability to come up with practical solutions on wellbeing related issues. Harnessing the enthusiasm and insight of young people to take practical actions through initiatives such as antibullying campaigns and wellbeing ambassador roles could have a deep impact for those involved in social action on a personal level and lead to positive change at a group level.

To get this started, we need to support, amplify and showcase existing youth led and youth co-led wellbeing initiatives and campaigns. This will provide the opportunity to build an evidence base to understand the efficacy of projects and approaches of leading and co-leading with young people and for best practice to be shared across agencies and young people in Surrey. The evidence base needs to include the opinions of young people using self-reported measures of satisfaction e.g. those used by CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) for counselling type interventions. Professionals across the system need to listen to the toxic cultural issues that young people flag up to us during the course of this work and to take collective action to address these.