HeadStart

Started in 2016, HeadStart was a six-year, £67.4 million National Lottery funded programme set up by The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK. HeadStart's aim was to explore and test new ways to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people aged 10 to 16 and prevent serious mental health issues from developing.

To do this, six local authority-led HeadStart partnerships worked with local young people, schools, families, charities, community and public services to design and try out new interventions that could make a difference to young people’s mental health, wellbeing and resilience.

The HeadStart partnerships were in the following locations in England: Blackpool; Cornwall; Hull; Kent; Newham; Wolverhampton.

As part of the funding, £8.7million was awarded for the final year to target support for marginalised young people to access the help they need, in light of increased demand for mental health and wellbeing support throughout the Covid-19 crisis.

The partnerships were united in their focus on improving resilience, preventing emerging mental health problems and reducing the need for specialist services. They approached these aims in diverse and creative ways, at both universal and targeted levels. These included:

• whole-school approaches
• parenting support programmes
• workforce development
• digital engagement
• community and voluntary groups
• peer mentoring
• whole town/city and organisational approaches.

Together, these enabled the partnerships to respond to the challenges of the Covid-19 lockdowns and provide subsequent support to an emotional wellbeing agenda locally around the reopening of schools.

This resource hub is a library for the celebration, exploration and sharing of the partnerships’ practices. It aims to disseminate key learning by themes most relevant for local areas who may be considering or implementing similar approaches.

In May 2023, The National Lottery Community Fund, in partnership with Anna Freud, published its final evaluation report on the programme which you can read here.