Skip to main navigation Skip to main content
Home

Search

  • Donate
  • News & opinion
  • About us
    • Who we are
      • Our vision, mission, values
      • Meet the NCB family
        • Anti-Bullying Alliance
        • Childhood Bereavement Network
        • Council for Disabled Children
        • Lambeth Early Action Partnership
        • Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum
        • Schools' Wellbeing Partnership
      • Our story
      • Our process
      • NCB in Northern Ireland
        • Outcomes Based Accountability
        • NI projects & programmes
          • LINKS
            • LINKS Grant Holder Organisations
              • A - F
              • G - L
              • M - R
              • S - Z
            • LINKS workshops
            • LINKS Young People Advisory Group
            • LINKS Internship
            • LINKS News
            • LINKS Cluster Group Meetings
        • News & opinion
        • Resources & Publications
        • The Impact of Covid 19 on LINKS Groups
        • Involving Young People in Decision Making
        • Working with children & young people in NI
          • Children's rights work
          • Commission us for participation support
          • Participation Support Programme
          • Recent projects with children & young people
          • Supporting children & young people's right to participation
          • Young NCB Northern Ireland
          • Young researchers
        • Northern Ireland events
        • Northern Ireland newsletter
        • Contact the Northern Ireland team
      • Our people
        • Trustees
        • Leadership Team
        • Anti-Bullying Alliance
        • Childhood Bereavement Network
        • Communications and marketing
        • Council for Disabled Children
        • Corporate services
        • Digital
        • Early years
        • Education
        • Fundraising
        • Health
        • LEAP
        • Northern Ireland
        • Research and Policy
        • Participation
    • Where we work
    • Join the team
      • Current vacancies
      • Employee benefits
      • Working at NCB
    • Media centre
      • News & opinion
      • Spokespeople

    About us

    We bring people and organisations together to drive change in society and deliver a better childhood across the UK.

    More
    • Who we are
    • Where we work
    • Join the team
    • Media centre
    Featured

    Meet the NCB family

  • What we do
    • Research
      • Our research projects
      • Young Research Advisors
      • Research partners
      • Families Research Advisory Group
      • Research reports
    • Networks
    • Policy
      • All Party Parliamentary Group
      • Our manifesto
      • Policy campaigns
        • Build Back Childhood
        • Give us a Chancellor
        • A vision for recovery
        • Children at the Heart
      • Reports, briefings and consultation responses
      • Research and Policy newsletter
    • Practice
      • Developing effective social care services
        • Safeguarding Early Adopters
      • Early years
        • Early Childhood Unit
          • Our programmes
            • Making it REAL
            • Special Making it REAL
            • Education Endowment Foundation REAL RCT
            • Our work in Jersey
            • Our work in Lambeth
            • Our work in Lewisham
          • Our training
          • National Quality Improvement Network
          • Our resources
            • Early years leaflets
            • Knowledge Makes Change seminars
          • Early Childhood Unit newsletter
          • Our early years work in Northern Ireland
        • A Better Start
        • Early Years SEND Partnership
        • Lambeth Early Action Partnership
      • Health
        • Designated Medical / Clinical Officer role development
        • Expert Parent Programme
        • The role of Independent Reviewing Officers in England
      • Inclusion & SEND
        • Delivering Better Outcomes Together
        • Information, Advice and Support Programme
        • It’s My Life! Decisions, Capacity and Education, Health and Care Plans
      • Wellbeing & mental health
        • HeadStart
          • Schools
          • Community approaches
          • Cross systems working
          • Outputs
          • Participation and co-production
          • Workforce development
          • Digital
          • Vulnerable young people
          • Learning from events
          • Reflections from NCB Support and Development contract
        • Schools' Wellbeing Partnership
          • Whole school approach
          • Key resources
          • Recent partnership activity
          • Partnership members
          • Our forum
          • Apply to join the partnership
        • All Together: Whole-school anti-bullying programme
        • Award scheme recognises schools building better mental health
        • Get Your Rights website
        • Joining up the dots
        • Learn Equality, Live Equal
    • Participation
      • Young NCB
      • Recent projects with children & young people
      • Involving children & young people in research
      • Hear from the young people we work with
      • Join Young NCB
    • Our strategy

    What we do

    Our impact goes beyond childhood to deliver lasting change for future generations.

    More
    • Research
    • Networks
    • Policy
    • Practice
    • Participation
    • Our strategy
    Featured

    Give us a Chancellor

    Featured

    Reports, briefings and consultation responses

  • Resources
    • Events & training
      • Calendar
      • Training and consultancy
        • Early years training
    • Covid-19 resources
    • Resources for schools
    • Major reports
    • All resources

    Resources

    Information and tools to guide policy and practice development.

    More
    • Events & training
    • Covid-19 resources
    • Resources for schools
    • Major reports
    • All resources
    Featured

    Covid-19 resources

    Featured

    Resources for schools

  • Partner with us
    • Our impact
    • Trusts and foundations
    • Corporate partnerships
    • Individual fundraising
    • Donate
    • Annual reports
    • Shop
      • Memberships
        • Anti-Bullying Alliance membership
        • Childhood Bereavement Network membership
      • Tools and resources
        • Childhood Bereavement Network resources
        • Early Childhood Unit Resources

    Partner with us

    Get involved today to help us build a better childhood for every child.

    More
    • Our impact
    • Trusts and foundations
    • Corporate partnerships
    • Individual fundraising
    • Donate
    • Annual reports
    • Shop
    Featured

    Trusts and foundations

    Featured

    Donate

Making a Difference to Young People's Lives through Personalised Care: Mental Health Inequalities and Social Deprivation

Published

8 Dec 2021

Tags

Health - Emotional wellbeing - Health - Personal Budgets - Personalisation - Poverty & inequality - Wellbeing & mental health - Research reports

This report aims to understand how personalised care interventions can better support children and young people who experience poor mental health and social deprivation, and to develop evidence regarding what works to enhance the personalised care offer for this cohort. The report makes a series of recommendations aimed at improving the experiences of this group, based on engagement work undertaken across the three sites with 19 young people, 11 parents, and 7 site professionals.

This report aims to understand how personalised care interventions can better support children and young people who experience poor mental health and social deprivation, and to develop evidence regarding what works to enhance the personalised care offer for this cohort. The report makes a series of recommendations aimed at improving the experiences of this group, based on engagement work undertaken across the three sites with 19 young people, 11 parents, and 7 site professionals.

Image
A photo of a teenage girl playing sort in a wheelchair

Impact of Personalised Approaches on Disadvantaged Young People
While those we interviewed expressed mixed experiences and varying outcomes from clinical mental health support provided by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), Emotional Wellbeing & Mental Health Service (EWMHS) or elsewhere, all of the young people and families we spoke to told us how the personalised support they had received had a positive impact on their life, mental health and wellbeing. Considering the nature of the impacts described below, this strongly indicates that personalised support is a highly effective option for young people from backgrounds of social deprivation.

<<< DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT >>>

<<< READ OUR NEWS ITEM ABOUT THE REPORT >>>

Several key impacts emerged across the sites:

Reduced Loneliness and Isolation
Young people aged 16-24 are the age group, particularly from socially deprived backgrounds, who report the highest levels of loneliness and isolation across the UK population (ONS Community Life Survey 2017). Several of the young people we spoke to said that the personalised support they had received had reduced their isolation and loneliness and enabled them to connect with others in their community.

Greater Access to Education, Training and Further Support, Improved Skills and Confidence
Several young people had returned to education and training or were able to access a range of support services they previously did not receive. Young people also explained that the personalised support had improved their skills and confidence, including life skills such as how to cook different meals, and how to budget effectively.

Image
A photo of teenage school boy with a quote from Amanda Allard over the top.

Personalisation
Many of the young people and families we spoke to highly valued the ways the support they received was tailored to their interests and needs, with the offer of choice and flexibility in how they were supported. Many young people explained how the process of receiving person-centred care had made them feel understood and cared for, in a way they hadn’t experienced from other forms of support. Many expressed concern about the lack of options for support in mental health services, which several young people described as being a ‘one size fits all’ approach that was unable to understand and properly meet their needs. Often young people had found talking therapies to be an inaccessible form of support.

Practical support
Social prescribing approaches and personal health budgets are accessed with agreement of the relevant NHS clinical team and focus on addressing health outcomes and can provide items and experiences which young people from socially deprived backgrounds would otherwise not be able to afford. In those studied here, it included arts and crafts materials; bus passes; driving lessons; laptops; musical instruments; a cooker; children’s toys; sports equipment; gym memberships, and more. Respondents from all sites valued how this practical support helped them address factors in their life that were causing significant stress, or enabled them to access protective activities against poor mental health. For example, several were able to receive bus passes or driving lessons, which reduced their isolation and improved their mental wellbeing.

Choice and control
Young people reported that one of the most important features of the support received was how they were allowed to make decisions. Having choice and control over their support options seems of particular value to young people from socially deprived and other disadvantaged backgrounds, who often have been given little agency in decisions.

Co-production
A significant aspect of this choice and control was that the services had been coproduced having evolved based on the feedback of young people. Young people were also involved in naming the services and, in one area, some had also been trained to volunteer and be part of the delivery of the programme.

Community-based support and Trust
Another particularly valuable aspect for young people from deprived backgrounds is that it is based in the community rather than in clinical settings and is seen as a less formal and more accessible form of support that had put them at ease. Several care leavers expressed low levels of trust in clinical services and reported feeling judged when accessing support. Young parents expressed particular wariness of statutory services because of a fear of having their child taken into care.

Holistic and integrated approach
Young people and one of the site professionals described the benefits of a holistic approach. It was noted that while most mental health care plans focused on mental health needs, and some may also explore access to education, there was a gap in holistic support, particularly around relationships and social opportunities. Many young people from socially deprived backgrounds have overlapping and complex needs and have had engagement from a range of statutory services. Several of the young people spoke about being in a near-constant process of referral and re-referrals. Many of the young people reported that holistic support had a positive impact on their physical health, confidence, family relationships, loneliness, education, as well as their mental health.

Resources for download

Making a Difference to Young People’s Lives Through Personalised Care: Mental Health Inequalities and Social Deprivation

Share

  • Share on facebook
  • Tweet this
  • Share linkedin
  • Email
Back to top
Home

Sign up to our newsletter

  • About us
    • Who we are
    • Where we work
    • Join the team
    • Media centre
  • What we do
    • Research
    • Networks
    • Policy
    • Practice
    • Participation
    • Our strategy
  • Resources
    • Events & training
    • Covid-19 resources
    • Resources for schools
    • Major reports
    • All resources
  • Partner with us
    • Our impact
    • Trusts and foundations
    • Corporate partnerships
    • Individual fundraising
    • Donate
    • Annual reports
    • Shop

Meet the NCB family : United for better childhood

  • NCB Home

  • CDC Home

  • CBN Home

  • ABA Home

  • SWP Home

© National Children's Bureau 2022

  • linkedin
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • youtube
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy statement
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookie Policy
  • Suppliers area
  • Contact us

Registered charity No. 258825. Registered in England and Wales No. 952717.

Registered office: National Children’s Bureau, 23 Mentmore Terrace, Hackney, London E8 3PN. A Company Limited by Guarantee.

Site by Effusion