Understanding young people's experience of mental health and wellbeing

Healthwatch Suffolk collaborated with Unity in Diversity and the Thomas Gainsborough School on a project to better understand young people’s experiences of mental health and wellbeing in Suffolk. The project fed into the ongoing work of the Public Health and Suffolk County Council’s Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services Transformation Plan. The team surveyed 400 students and ran an engagement session with 100 students. Unity and Diversity led stage 3 of the project which comprised of drama workshops, followed by a showcase.

The responses indicated that young people ranked mental health, self-harm and sexual health as their top 3 priorities. The findings also indicated that young people associated mental illness with deviant behaviour and young people recognised that mental health has wider impacts than just the individual suffering. The team noted that there were a number of barriers to accessing mental health services for young people. Young people indicated that mental health should be a more prominent part of personal, social, health and economic education.

The report includes recommendations from students at the Thomas Gainsborough School. The report also indicated that the Thomas Gainsborough School have taken progressive steps to address the need for more education around mental health and wellbeing.