Disseminating, applying and advancing mindfulness research to promote the wellbeing of young people.

Adolescent wellbeing in the UK is amongst the lowest from 35 countries worldwide.[13-15] Poor mental health is associated with physical ill health, risky health behaviour [16] and school absenteeism.[17] Epidemiological and psychobiological studies indicate that promoting adolescent wellbeing can powerfully mediate the effects of stress and psychosocial adversity on health and economic outcomes.[16, 18] Improving adolescent wellbeing in the UK is now a national priority with urgent calls for cost-effective, evidence-based, whole school interventions that help all young people to develop habits of mind and behaviour to both build resilience to everyday adversity and to flourish emotionally.[16, 19-22] UK schools have a statutory duty to deliver a curriculum that promotes the EWB of young people, and over 70% of secondary schools implement the SEAL programme. This programme is a "loose enabling framework" to promoting EWB with schools encouraged to adapt implementation to local need.[2] MBA show significant promise in promoting wellbeing and delivering on SEAL objectives.[3-7] Mindfulness is an attention-based practice which promotes awareness and regulation of one's thoughts and feelings in ways that prohibit depressive rumination on the past and fearful anticipation of the future.[8] Substantial evidence indicates that MBA promote wellbeing among adults [9-11, 23-24], and exploratory studies suggest they may also be effective for young people.[8,25] Exploratory school based studies of the effects of MBA on EWB have produced promising findings, but to date these studies have been small, with unrepresentative samples.[3-7] Randomised controlled trials cannot be conducted until we have a fit-for-purpose, whole school programme, suitable for end-users whose EWB is poor. We therefore need to deepen our understanding of anticipated beneficiaries and the implementation context if we are to successfully promote the application of MBA to (hard-to-reach) young people within the SEAL programme.This creative, user-led project will build a collective understanding with users and stakeholders of if, and how, MBA can be implemented in schools to promote pupil wellbeing. We will explore organisational and policy influences, and develop routes to impact. We will identify user and stakeholder priorities for future trials of effectiveness and establish international knowledge exchange mechanisms to sustain partnerships beyond the life of the project. Past achievements by the project team, and their existing partnerships, underwrite the project's potential to deliver on its objectives. This project will involve young people (in an Apprentice Researcher Team) and stakeholders from the outset and they will inform each of the nine project strands. With permission, we will film aspects of the project as a 'fly on the wall' documentary, aiming to capture the process by which a collective understanding has been generated. Following professional editing, this documentary will constitute a powerful, cost-effective tool for dissemination, dialogue and impact. Otherstrands promote dissemination, dialogue and co-production of knowledge with stakeholders and beneficiaries and include: synthesising existing knowledge for dissemination; establishing a Network for collaboration and communication; placements to understand applied context, organisational climate and policy frameworks; an art exhibition by young people to represent understandings of wellbeing and stress; a workshop for users and stakeholders; a Network website with tailored content (including podcasts) for different users; hosting an national conference for the launch of the International Mindfulness in Schools Network. Evaluation of project process and outcomes will be conducted in multiple ways, including participant feedback, website hits and downloads, attendance of policymakers at the final conference, new partnerships formed and number of publications targeting non-academic audiences.

Direct beneficiaries of this work are young people (11-18 years), school communities (teachers, head teachers, classroom assistants, pastoral teams), a local council (Children and Educational Psychology services), the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), policymakers, the co-funding charity and researchers in mindfulness and whole school approaches to wellbeing.
1. Young people will benefit in diverse ways. Fifteen young people (15-18yrs) will form the project's Apprentice Research Team. They will: receiving training in committee roles and user involvement; be offered mindfulness training and practice; be invited to university events including research open days; with undergraduates acting as mentors; learn about MBA, engage with researchers and stakeholders, and inform the creative aspects of the project (e.g. documentary, website, exhibition and pod/vodcasts). We hope to excite this group of young people about research, raise their aspirations and hope they will benefit from seeing the ways in which they can use and shape research. A separate constituency of young people who practice mindfulness will be invited to communicate their experiences on the project website; we know of young people from the UK, USA, Germany and Egypt who are keen to do this. Such contributions will engage a global community of young people in dialogue about well-being and MBA. A third group of young people (11-18 yrs) who live locally to the project, will have the opportunity to contribute representations of wellbeing and stress at a multi-media exhibition. This group will benefit from having their artistic skills recognised and rewarded and from opportunities to work with Leeds Metropolitan Schools of Art and a graffiti artist; with permission, work would be hosted on the project website whose global reach will expand the pool of beneficiaries and promote international dissemination and user engagement.
2. Council services for young people (Children's Services and Educational Psychology Services), head teachers and other school staff will benefit by learning about MBA and links to wellbeing, and its potential fit with SEAL. These stakeholders will benefit by shaping knowledge on how MBA could be implemented in schools, thus sensitising future research to the needs of their organisations, schools, curriculum, classrooms and pupils. It may help to inform strategic objectives for council services who commission school programmes. Partnerships cemented during the project are likely to be deployed in future research, with opportunities for involvement in RCTs of the effectiveness of MBA in schools. The project website will have a knowledge back and resources for different users and will reach beneficiaries not directly involved in the project. The DVD will disseminate knowledge about implementing MBA to multiple users and stakeholders.
3.Policy makers will benefit from understanding and shaping the potential of MBA for promoting wellbeing. The Children and Young People's (CYP) Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Project (part of CAMHS) who are exploring new, evidence-based practices which can meet the mental health needs of young people will benefit , as well as the Mental Health Foundation who aim to support mindfulness for all.
4.The co-funding charity will benefit from the project as it meets one of their strategic objectives to invest in national and international mindfulness research.
5. Researchers will benefit from the establishment of an International Network for Mindfulness in Schools, from improved potential for later uptake of their research and international partnership, optimising the potential for future R & D investment.