Firhill Learning Festival: ‘Bridging Research and Reality – Understanding Youth Mental Health Together’

Workshop Facilitators Dr Luke Power and Dejla Hoxha

The Mental Health in the Moment (MHIM) team recently presented a workshop at the Firhill Learning Festival which focused on adolescent’s mental health. The workshop aimed to bridge research findings with teachers’ observations of young people’s mental health in their educational context. The workshop content focused on the main mental health concepts/constructs, mental health factors/predictors and finally school-based interventions. It provided space for teachers to reflect upon findings from the academic literature and from the insights made by young people involved in the team’s MHIM Young People Advisory Group (YPAG).

Teachers commented that insights from both the MHIM-YPAG members and associated literature resonated with them. Notably, there were clear overlaps between the workshop information and the teacher’s day-to-day experiences with young people. Teachers emphasised the importance of mental health constructs such as anxiety and depression for adolescents. In addition, teachers linked adolescent’s mental health to (1) social media use, (2) school-related stress, (3) general stress (4) relationships and (5) identity/sexuality. Again, this was something shared with the MHIM-YPAG young people.

Finally, through a discussion around their own practice, teachers highlighted the importance of school-based mental health interventions. However, they also noted the potential barriers to their successful implementation. Due to resource constraints, teachers stated that practice was, at times, limited to targeted interventions, over ‘whole school’ approaches. Given the increasing recognition that mental health experiences is a key feature of adolescent development, teachers stated the importance of interventions that equip adolescents with coping skills, rather than providing support only when issues escalate. This clearly highlights the need for researchers to develop interventions in a way that is both universal and resource light.

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Dr Luke Power is a Research Fellow with the Mental Health in the Moment (MHIM) Project. His primary research interest is mental health and how experiences throughout the life-course impact trajectories. He is specifically interested in (1) key developmental periods (adolescents), (2) the social determinants of (mental) health and (3) the experiences of vulnerable communities e.g., those that have been in care. He also has a keen interest in mixed methodological approaches and those that amplify the voices of those with lived-experience, specifically co-production and co-design.

Dejla Hoxha is a Research Assistant for the MHIM Project as well as its sister project MHIM-ADHD, currently focusing on the developmental trajectories of mental health in adolescence more widely, and in adolescents with ADHD more specifically. Dejla has a background in developmental psychology, with a keen focus in mental health in adolescence, neurodiversity, early childhood development and the importance of play. Her academic experience is complemented by direct work with children and young people in social, educational and culturally diverse settings.