Evaluating Plan UK’s Young Health Programme
The Plan UK Young Health Programme (YHP-UK), funded by AstraZeneca, supported young people aged 10 to 24 to realise their right to good mental health and wellbeing. YHP-UK worked with six delivery partners in Greater Manchester and Cambridgeshire to co-design and deliver an offer based on the NHS Five Ways to Mental Wellbeing from 2022-2025.
Alongside the wellbeing programme for young people, Communities of Practice were established to explore good practice for staff in supporting young people’s mental health and wellbeing. YHP-UK collaborated with #BeeWell to deliver practice sessions on social media use, places for young people to go, body image and the benefits of arts and culture on wellbeing.
The CORC team worked closely with Plan UK to understand the impact of the programme and the characteristics of young people that were involved through analysis of self-reported outcomes and interviews. CORC also interviewed young people and staff delivering YHP-UK in Manchester and Cambridgeshire.
Qualitative feedback was positive: young people valued the range of wellbeing activities available and felt a sense of achievement in helping to plan and arrange these. Staff also reported that YHP-UK’s focus and training on coproduction had a positive impact on the organisation as a whole.
The final report produced by CORC showed that YHP-UK improved self-reported wellbeing, resilience and mental health empowerment. These improvements varied across a range of genders, including transgender and non-binary identities. By carefully considering these findings alongside other factors, CORC have supported Plan UK in determining what they suggest about the groups of people accessing and benefiting from the programme:
More information on the YHP-UK programme can be found here: United Kingdom -addressing youth mental health and on Instagram.
For more information on how CORC can help your organisation to analyse and interpret data, please visit our data analysis and reporting webpage.