Social Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) in schools

YouthWatch scrutinised the Future in Mind: Leeds plan between May and November 2018 to explain how people will work together to improve children and young people’s emotional and mental health.

The project was coproduced with YouthWatch volunteers who have been involved in all aspects of the work from the initial planning, designing of the questionnaires, carrying out the interviews, analysing the data and presenting the findings.

The report highlights that children and young people had heard of MindMate mainly through school and understood what it was about. However, the awareness was much lower at summer festivals and in schools that weren’t participating in the programme. Most primary school staff and students gave very good feedback about the lessons but the ones from secondary school or from outside of mainstream settings expected more engaging and adaptable lessons.

The overall outlook towards MindMate was positive as it led to children and young people being more open and confident talking about mental health.

The report recommended to promote the MindMate services amongst young people and use schools for help; to investigate how MindMate lessons and resources can be used by children and young people with special educational needs; create a resource bank under each MindMate lessons theme; to regularly review and update MindMate lessons and incorporate views of staff and students; to ensure the schools are clear about MindMate Consultants and the available support and to use and adapt the interactive case studies map to encourage more schools to participate with MindMate.