School and university are key settings for young people and their experiences there are inextricably entwined with their mental health. Several of the programmes have had a particular focus on these priority settings.
Life at school
Mental health difficulties can have a significant impact on young people’s attendance and attainment at school, while aspects of life at school can also impact on young people’s mental health. As children and young people spend so much time in schools, they are also a key site for interventions.
The ReSET team developed a new transdiagnostic school-based group intervention to prevent mental health problems emerging or worsening in young people. Pilot and feasibility testing indicated that the intervention was experienced as a cohesive programme, with participants able to draw on a combination of skills, with the tasks received positively. The recruitment and research measures were successfully delivered in the school-based setting.
Building on this evidence of feasibility and acceptability, the team will shortly publish the results of their trial with 560 young people. In the meantime, they are sharing key insights on learning from the experience of embedding a preventative intervention in schools. Recommendations include using strengths-based language that focuses on growth and learning rather than problems or diagnoses, and providing clear links between the skills that are taught and their application in daily school and social contexts. These insights have been shared in podcasts and webinars for schools.
The SOCITS team have explored different spaces around school, how young people use these spaces, and the interactions they have in them. They are interested in the impact these can have on factors such as stress and loneliness that are strongly linked to mental health. They have produced webinars to support schools, local authorities and health improvement teams to use their approach to identifying adjustments that can be made to the environment to tackle loneliness and stress.
ReThink have been exploring the drivers of mental health and wellbeing of care-experienced young people, including what predicts poor mental health, but also positive outcomes such as liking school or life satisfaction. They are particularly interested in understanding this over two key transition periods: as young people move into secondary school, and again as they move into early adulthood.
The RE-STAR team has explored the relationship between upsetting experiences in school and neurodivergent young people’s risk of poor mental health. Through participatory research, the team identified the emotional burden carried by neurodivergent young people as they seek to manage everyday events, explained in this podcast from Psychology in the Classroom. Bringing their findings together with the results of applied theatre practices, workshops, focus groups and surveys with staff and neurodivergent young people, the team are developing Place Positive, a school-based intervention to reduce the risk of depression among pupils with ADHD or autism traits.
Life at university
The transition to university and the experiences and challenges of university life provide opportunities for personal growth and the development of coping skills, but can also put students at risk of stress and mental health difficulties. These difficulties are on the rise among university students in the UK, and student wellbeing services report being under strain.
The Nurture-U programme evaluated elements within a whole-university approach that is now standard within the sector, to inform best practice. The team surveyed over 14,000 students across five universities in autumn and spring over three academic years, with 5,000 of those participating in the study providing data on repeated occasions. Students from minoritised groups and those with previous mental illness tended to report worse mental health, and further findings are forthcoming.
The team’s exploration of compassionate university campuses established that this requires efforts to improve culture, communication and community. The resulting Compassionate Campus guidance has been designed to use alongside Student Minds’ University Mental Health Charter, helping universities to achieve this status.
They have also explored perceived barriers and access to university mental health services, finding that reduced service use was related to attitudinal barriers, minimizing problems, and difficulty discussing problems, especially among students with elevated anxiety or depression symptoms. Staff members have shared their views on provisions for mitigating circumstances such as mental ill health.
The team will also soon publish findings that their mental health literacy course for students is beneficial, and the results of their trial of internet Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for students.
The U-Belong project identified experiences that contribute to young people’s experiences of loneliness at university, highlighting the mismatch between social expectations and reality, previously under-explored in young adulthood (Priestley et al., 2025). The team have also explored other contributing factors.