Research Library

The Mercers’ Wellbeing Evaluation Programme aimed to support Mercers’ Associated Schools and Colleges to evaluate their mental health and wellbeing provision. The programme was delivered in two phases between 2016 and 2022. The final report from the Mercers’ Wellbeing Evaluation Programme is available online. It summarises the learning and achievements of the programme’s second phase, setting these within the context of the programme as a whole.

This briefing aims to describe an approach to monitoring and evaluating children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing in schools and colleges, as a means to provide better support. The IDEA (Intervention description, Design, Evaluation implementation, Analysis and reporting) approach is described, which gives practical steps to the development of approaches to evaluating support for mental health and wellbeing delivered in educational settings. Three evaluations that have adopted this approach are also summarised.

Why focus on children’s mental health at this time? What has the impact been on young people’s mental wellbeing? How can we best support children and young people’s mental health at this time?

This briefing draws on learning emerging from research led by the Evidence Based Practice Unit in collaboration with the Child Outcomes Research Consortium, The University of Manchester and Common Room. The Mercers’ Company funded the research. The Mercers’ Company is the Premier Livery Company of the City of London. Authors: Deighton, J., Stapley, E., Lereya, T., Burrell, K., Atkins, L. (2019).

The dual-factor approach to mental health was employed to explore levels and interrelations of protective factors associated with resilience in a dataset of 30,841 schoolchildren aged 11–14 in England. Authors: Jefferies, P., Fritz, J., Deighton, J., Ungar, M. (2023).

Universal help-seeking interventions in schools to support young people’s mental health have been widely used, but we know little about their initial impact and longer term follow-up. This systematic literature review aims to explore the impact of these types of programmes across different help-seeking constructs. Authors: Hayes, D., Mansfield, R., Mason, C., Santos, J., Moore, A., Boehnke, J., Ashworth, E., Moltrecht, B., Humphrey, N., Stallard, P., Patalay, P., & Deighton, J. (2023).

The findings suggest a need for caution in using the strengths and difficulties questionnaire as a self-report measure for children below the age of 13, and highlight considerations of readability in measure development, selection and interpretation. Authors: Patalay, P., Hayes, D., & Wolpert, M. (2018).

Psychological distress is common among women of childbearing age, and limited longitudinal research suggests prolonged exposure to maternal distress is linked to child mental health problems. We analysed the UK Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative sample with data collected throughout childhood. Authors: Hope, S., Pearce, A., Chittleborough, C., Deighton, J., Maika, A., Micali, N., Mittinty, M., Law, C., Lynch, J. (2018).

This paper presents an example of the use of a FUPS dataset in the complex system of child mental healthcare. The paper explores the use of this FUPS dataset to support meaningful dialogue between key stakeholders, including service providers, funders and users, in relation to outcomes of services. The term ‘FUPS’ is proposed to describe these flawed, uncertain, proximate and sparse datasets. Authors: Wolpert, M., Rutter, H. (2018).