Healthy Young Minds: co-producing a nature-based intervention with rural High School students to promote mental well-being and reduce anxiety
Lead Research Organisation:
University of South Wales
Department Name: Faculty of Life Sciences and Education
Abstract
An early intervention programme will be co-produced with rural High School students to promote mental well-being, increase resilience and reduce anxiety through engagement with nature and local greenspaces. Poor mental health is experienced by many young people, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic, and poses a significant health challenge, nationally and globally. Levels of anxiety are increasing, fuelled by fears about issues like climate change, examinations, body image and cyberbullying. Smith et al (2017) and Gilmour et al (2022) refer to the growing number of referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and long waiting times. The link between engagement with nature and mental well-being is widely evidenced in adults (Mughal et all 2022) and the benefits referenced in Public Health (Masterton et al, 2020) but less is known about if and, if so, how young adolescents access nature for mental health benefits, particularly in rural areas. Rural young people experience additional disadvantages, which have an impact on mental health, due to geographical isolation, lack of public transport, poor Broadband connectivity and poor access to services. See Me (2018) found only 26% of young respondents would tell someone if they were finding it difficult to cope with mental health because of fear of being judged and not taken seriously. Fear of stigma is an even greater disincentive for those seeking help in small communities where some rural High Schools have fewer than 300 pupils and anonymity is extremely difficult to achieve. Studies (Thompson, Lejac 2021; Allwood 2021) show these difficulties are compounded for young people experiencing additional support needs, caring responsibilities, marginalisation (e.g. LGBT+) and deprivation, which is often hidden in rural areas.
Informed by research evidence and professional mental health expertise, the co-production approach increases the chances that young people will engage with developing an accessible, appropriate and acceptable intervention to promote mental well-being among High School students. Co-production connects young people's lived experience with professional input to strengthen intervention design. This proposal is based on findings from the 'Building Natural Capital' study (Ideas Fund) by Bradley, Ellis and Taylor with a group of rural High School students. It introduced second year (S2) students to research about how greenspaces can support mental wellbeing and explored how they used local greenspace in a region where young people's mental health had been identified as a priority by the Highland Community Planning Partnership 'Highland Outcomes Improvement Plan' and local organisations such as mental health charity, Ewen's Room.
This study's objectives are:
To co-produce a preventative, nature-based intervention with rural High School students, peer supporters and researchers to alleviate anxiety, build resilience and promote mental well-being in early adolescence when mental health problems often arise.
To identify, highlight and address rural High School students' mental health issues as well as examine challenges and priorities for future rural service delivery.
To undertake research and evaluation of the co-production activity to add knowledge about the practice, to assess the impacts of co-designing with young people and to test its efficacy in intervention design.
To develop an intervention framework to be trialled in a follow-on pilot which will test feasibility, gauge potential impact, examine scalability and undertake a cost-benefit analysis.
Informed by research evidence and professional mental health expertise, the co-production approach increases the chances that young people will engage with developing an accessible, appropriate and acceptable intervention to promote mental well-being among High School students. Co-production connects young people's lived experience with professional input to strengthen intervention design. This proposal is based on findings from the 'Building Natural Capital' study (Ideas Fund) by Bradley, Ellis and Taylor with a group of rural High School students. It introduced second year (S2) students to research about how greenspaces can support mental wellbeing and explored how they used local greenspace in a region where young people's mental health had been identified as a priority by the Highland Community Planning Partnership 'Highland Outcomes Improvement Plan' and local organisations such as mental health charity, Ewen's Room.
This study's objectives are:
To co-produce a preventative, nature-based intervention with rural High School students, peer supporters and researchers to alleviate anxiety, build resilience and promote mental well-being in early adolescence when mental health problems often arise.
To identify, highlight and address rural High School students' mental health issues as well as examine challenges and priorities for future rural service delivery.
To undertake research and evaluation of the co-production activity to add knowledge about the practice, to assess the impacts of co-designing with young people and to test its efficacy in intervention design.
To develop an intervention framework to be trialled in a follow-on pilot which will test feasibility, gauge potential impact, examine scalability and undertake a cost-benefit analysis.
