Assessing nationwide interventions in schools and the community that aim to improve the mental wellbeing of 10-to 16-year olds
CORC is part of the Learning Team for HeadStart, which is 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. It aims 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. The Learning Team is a consortium of partners evaluating and sharing learning from HeadStart, led by Dr Jessica Deighton at EBPU.
Six local authority-led HeadStart partnerships in Blackpool, Cornwall, Hull, Kent, Newham and Wolverhampton are working with local young people, schools, families, charities, community and public services to make young people’s mental health and wellbeing everybody’s business. School interventions include whole school, year group and class level support, such as education around what mental health is and what to do when experiencing a mental health problem. Other interventions, such as one-to-one counselling sessions, are for particular groups of young people e.g. those who are at higher risk of developing a mental health problem.
Find out more about the approaches and learning from HeadStart: