Engaging with an established young person’s advisory group on adolescent mental health and schools
We gathered children and young people's views on using the Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data – England (ECHILD) dataset to understand stress and mental health in secondary schools in England.
Author: Ruth Blackburn
Who carried out this project: Ruth Blackburn with the Great Ormond Street Hospital Young Person’s Advisory Group for research
Who to contact to find out more: Please contact the ECHILD team at ich.echild@ucl.ac.uk.
The ‘why’
We wanted to know what children and young people thought about using the ECHILD database to understand stress and mental health in secondary schools in England. ECHILD stands for Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data – England, and is made up of linked de-identified records from school and healthcare.
The ‘who’
In this session we talked with 18 children and young people (aged 14-22 years) who are part of the Great Ormond Street Hospital Young Person’s Advisory Group (GOSH YPAG) for research.
The ‘how’
We shared research on hospital admissions with stress-related presentations, such as physical symptoms without a medical cause (e.g. tummy pain, fainting); self-harm; mental health presentations (e.g. anxiety, depression); and externalising behaviours (e.g. drug use, disruptive behaviours).
We asked the young people about how they thought schools could be sources of stress for pupils, and about how schools could better support pupils. We also asked for their perspectives on using ECHILD to understand mental health in families, including how a child's mental health could affect their parent or sibling's health.
Lessons learned
The young people told us:
Schools
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Important sources of school stress were social/friendship groups and tests or exams. For example, some pupils sit weekly exams that count towards their final grade, causing constant stress.
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Some schools have implemented their own ways of monitoring pupil mental health, including polls or surveys via Microsoft Teams or email. Anonymous polls can be a discreet and helpful approach for monitoring class or school wellbeing.
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Loneliness (particularly during the pandemic) can exacerbate stress. Conversely, having someone in school you trust to talk to can help reduce stress.
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Whole school approaches such as assemblies or posters can be helpful for managing stress, as can support from designated roles such as counsellors or wellbeing officers.
Families
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Mental health affects whole families, not just individuals.
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Family and parent culture are important for how mental health and stress is perceived.
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Children and young people may try to hide their mental health difficulties from their family to avoid creating more stress for their parents and siblings.
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Sometimes it can be hard for parents and carers to understand the stresses that children and young people face, as these can be quite different from their own concerns.