Anna Freud Applied Research and Evaluation Team Day
Since 2020, CORC has been based within the Applied Research and Evaluation team at Anna Freud, based in both London and Manchester. Together and separately, we conduct a variety of research projects, with partners and members, to inform mental health and wellbeing interventions for children and young people. CORC specifically provides expertise in outcome feedback and measurement.
The whole team recently had their annual Team Away Day, in the London Wildlife Trust, which is just a walk along the canal from our London office.
A chance for us all to get together in person, have some productive fun, focus on our part within Anna Freud’s closing the gap strategy, consider progressive evolutions, and reflect on the many interesting projects we are working on currently across the team.
Much of our work takes months and years to formulate a summary of findings, and if you follow CORC and Evidence Based Practice Unit on X, or subscribe to our newsletter, you’ll be notified of reports once each becomes available.
However, we wanted to share some of these projects that are underway or ongoing. Some you may be aware of, and some may spark some interest.
If you’d like to discuss anything in particular, are interested in conducting any research, or would like support establishing a theory of change, conducting surveys, or analysis, please get in touch.
#BeeWell
#BeeWell was co-founded by The University of Manchester, The Gregson Family Foundation and Anna Freud in 2019, and developed in partnership with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. In 2023 #BeeWell expanded into Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, and Southampton.
Central to the programme is a survey, created collaboratively with 350 young people from 30 schools and a team of mental health and wellbeing experts. The young participants played a crucial role in designing the survey to ensure it reflected what truly mattered to them.
The #BeeWell findings are then shared with schools and coalition partners in order to understand priorities and respond accordingly, with CORC meeting with school representatives and young people to discuss the findings in detail.
Two PhD students are currently funded through #BeeWell to conduct the following research:
- PhD research to identify how we can improve data collection on mental health and wellbeing of children with special educational needs in non-mainstream school settings
- PhD research looking at the relationship between physical activity and mental health and wellbeing in children and young people
Beyond evaluation
Beyond is a transformation programme in Cheshire and Merseyside. It aims to improve care for children and young people that supports their physical and mental health. It is a multi-agency programme, recognising that local authorities, health, and the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector need to align their efforts and involve children, young people and families to prevent poor outcomes.
Beyond aims to reduce inequalities, act on the social determinants of health, and give children and young people the best possible start in life by focusing on priority areas.
The overall aim of our evaluation is to identify what is working well and any elements for improvement in the design and delivery of the Beyond Programme.
Education for Wellbeing
Funded by the Department for Education, Education for Wellbeing is England's largest research trial of school-based mental health interventions. The aim of the programme is to evaluate pioneering ways of supporting the mental wellbeing of pupils. Anna Freud is delivering Education for Wellbeing and the Evidence-Based Practice Unit is evaluating the approaches, examining their impact on pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.
There are two trials that are part of Education for Wellbeing: AWARE and INSPIRE. As part of AWARE, schools are randomly allocated to one of the following approaches:
- A set of five lessons that use role play designed to improve pupils’ understanding of mental health and reduce suicide rates. Developed in Sweden and America, Youth Aware Mental Health (YAM) encourages pupils to share their own ideas about how to maintain good mental health and how to help each other to find ways to resolve everyday dilemmas.
- A teacher training programme developed in Canada called The Guide. Adapted for England for the study, it develops teachers’ understanding of mental health, trains them on how to teach their pupils about it and addresses stigma.
- Usual practice. Schools that are allocated to usual practice continue as usual and receive free mental health and wellbeing training at the end of the trial.
As part of INSPIRE, schools are randomly allocated to:
- A series of eight lessons designed to increase young people’s skills around personal safety and managing their mental health, as well as helping them to identify their support networks. Training pupils in relaxation techniques embedded into the school day, every day for five minutes.
- Training pupils in mindfulness embedded into the school day, every day for five minutes.
- Usual practice. Schools that are allocated to usual practice continue as usual and receive free mental health and wellbeing training at the end of the trial.
So far, the programme has reached over 35,000 pupils across 500 schools.
Image based measures
We know how difficult it can be for children and young people to express their feelings, and its importance in supporting their mental health. Now, the main way we find out how young people are doing and feeling is with text-based questionnaires. We know these don’t work for everyone. So, we want to create a different type of questionnaire, that uses images and pictures rather than text.
Text-based questionnaires are particularly challenging for certain groups of people, such as minoritized ethnic groups, neurodiverse groups, people with special educational needs, and people with English as an additional language. This is because existing text-based measure have often not been designed with people from these groups. We want to hear from different people, including people from these groups. This project will result in the creation of a co-produced image-based questionnaire/measure working with young people and researchers.
IntegrateED
The project, funded by Porticus, is an evaluation of a new programme being piloted. The Programme aims to ensure that:
- Pupils who are at risk of exclusion and their families receive rapid and impactful support to be happy and successful in their mainstream school.
- Alternative provision settings and mainstream schools have a shared understanding of the evidence-based approaches that are most likely to support pupils at risk of exclusion.
The Programme aims to support pupils in school years 7-8 (aged 11-13 years).
We are interested in capturing learning from the pilot of the Programme. This will contribute to the ongoing development of support that improves the success and wellbeing for pupils at risk of exclusion.
Kailo programme
The Kailo Programme will develop, test and scale an evidence-informed framework that will support local partnerships to co-design strategies that address the underlying drivers of poor adolescent mental health.
Anna Freud were tasked with creating two evidence briefings focusing on issues highlighted by young people and local groups in Newham and Northern Devon. The topics were access to employment in rural communities (Northern Devon) and access to out of school activities (Newham).
Find out more: www.kailo.community
London Vanguard / Liaison and Diversion (L&D) Service review
Underpinned by the framework for integrated care (community), the London Vanguards in North East London ICS, South East London ICS and North Central London ICS, are piloting a community-based holistic model of care.
Vanguard involves prioritising the needs of children, young people and their parents and carers by actively engaging with local communities to build on existing services and infrastructures, plugging gaps in expertise and capacity as required.
These teams work together to develop services to improve the wellbeing of children, young people, their parents and carers, and local communities who may be affected by violence.
Our project is a 3-year independent evaluation of London Vanguard. As part of this, is a review of the Liaison and Diversion Service (L&D).
L&D services identify people who have mental health, learning disability, substance misuse or other vulnerabilities when they first come into contact with the criminal justice system as suspects, defendants or offenders. The review aims to develop a new model of delivery of L&D in London which is fit for purpose for 2024 and beyond, reflecting the changed London Criminal Justice System (CJS) landscape and how police officers make decisions when they come across individuals in some form of mental health crisis.
More Good Days At School
Mainstream secondary schools in England are taking part in our More Good Days at School (MGDAS) study, co-funded by the Youth Endowment Fund and the Home Office.
This national research study is a randomised controlled trial to look at how schools can support young people’s wellbeing, working with mainstream secondary schools to identify whether those staff informed and trained to respond to trauma are able to better support students’ mental health and wellbeing.
On the way to school
A 32 month research project evaluating children and adolescent groups walking or cycling to and from school in Bogota, Colombia and Maputo, Mozambique, looking at active mobility to and from school and its impact on physical and mental wellbeing.
Funded by Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases and the UK Medical Research Council. Due to be complete in 2026.
More details available here.
Schools and Colleges Early Support Service (SCESS)
The service, piloted in 2020 and began as a response to the increasing mental health needs and treatment gap exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, is for young people aged 11-25 experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties, like anxiety and low mood, and the trusted adults around them. For young people, it comprises 6-8 weekly sessions (11-25 years old), single session 1:1 consultations (16-25 year olds), and on-demand psychoeducation webinars. School staff are offered termly 1:1 consultations and on-demand psychoeducation webinars. Parents and carers are offered single 1:1 consultations and live and on-demand webinars.
Ongoing evaluation has been embedded into the programme to monitor feedback, change and continually improve the service. Key outcomes for young people include reduced anxiety and depression symptoms, improved wellbeing, and progress on Goal-Based Outcomes.
National Evaluation of Start for Life
The Family Hubs and Start for Life programme is a UK government programme that provides services to support parents and carers from a child’s conception until their second birthday, aiming to transform support for families in 75 local authorities in England. It helps meet commitments in The best start for life: a vision for the 1,001 critical days, published as government policy in March 2021.
The programme’s objective is to join up and enhance services delivered through transformed family hubs in local authority areas, ensuring all parents and carers can access the support they need when they need it. It will also support the creation of a network of family hubs.
The evaluation is examining the implementation process and impact of the Start for Life programme using a range of research methods. Led by Oxford University with Anna Freud and Ecorys as collaborating partners.
United Against Bullying
Bullying is defined as the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. Involvement in peer bullying has been found to be associated with a range of adverse outcomes in childhood, including academic problems, school absenteeism, physical and mental health problems, and suicidal ideations and attempts.
United Against Bullying Plus (UAB+) is a whole school anti-bullying programme for schools in England run by the Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA), which forms part of the National Children’s Bureau (NCB), and in partnership with Kidscape. It has universal and targeted elements, and the overall aim of the programme is to reduce bullying.
The overarching aim of the evaluation is to explore feasibility, acceptability, and readiness for trial of United Against Bullying Plus (UAB+).
Youth Intensive Psychological Practitioner (YIPP)
This is a new role being piloted in 18 NHS Trusts, supporting young people with highest mental health need and improving access to psychological therapies, building therapeutic relationships and supporting transitions.
Our work includes a mixed-methods evaluation, interviews with YIPPs, clinicians, leaders and implementers to support with it’s infrastructure, systems and planning.
Your Choice evaluation
Anna Freud and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have partnered to evaluate the Your Choice programme, a high-intensity CBT-based intervention with young people, focused on building relationships through frequent contact. Your Choice involves young people meeting with their practitioners three times per week for twelve weeks.
The intervention is being rolled out across London boroughs with young people who are considered "high risk" and aims to reduce violence.
You can keep up to date on the variety of projects across the Applied Research and Evaluation Team at Anna Freud here, and we will soon be updating our Wellbeing Measurement for Schools section on our website, for continued update on our work in this area.