Leading Education and Social Research - Institute of Education University of London
Behaviour - Research - Children’s Emotional Well Being and Mental Health
Key London Issues > Behaviour > Research > Children’s Emotional Well Being and Mental Health:

Children’s Emotional Well Being and Mental Health

The latest research by a team of IOE researchers has produced a review based on 20 studies, which offers policy-makers and practitioners in England an up-to-date, context-relevant guide for programme development within the field of children’s emotional well being and mental health.

By providing a detailed description of the successful initiatives reviewed, this review should help policy-makers and practitioners to develop their work.

Supporting children’s emotional wellbeing and mental health in England: a review

  • Claire Maxwell, Peter Aggleton, Ian Warwick and Ekua Yankah
    Thomas Coram Research Unit, The Institute of Education,University of London, London, UK
  • Vivian Hill
    School of Psychology and Human Development, The Institute of Education,University of London, London, UK
  • Dina Mehmedbegovic´
    London Education Research Unit, The Institute of Education,University of London, London, UK
Abstract:

Purposes - This paper aims to inform the development of policies and programmes to support children and young people’s emotional wellbeing and mental health. It seeks to bring together findings both from recent systematic reviews, and from individual evaluation studies which have adopted a relatively rigorous methodology but whose findings have not to date been included in such analyses.Research undertaken in England is to be prioritised, to complement an existing evidence base comprised largely of findings from US-based research.

Design / Methodology / Approach – Using five key search strategies, studies were categorised into three main categories – “demonstrably effective approaches”, “promising approaches” and “approaches for which there is little or no supporting evidence” – according to robustness of evidence. Overall, 171 potentially relevant studies were identified, with 20 of these being robust enough for inclusion in the final review.

Findings – In schools, sustained broad-based mental health promotion programmes combined with more targeted behavioural and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for those children with identifiable emotional wellbeing and mental health needs, offer evidence of a demonstrably effective approach. Early and brief intervention programmes which reduce waiting times for services appear promising approaches and seem to reduce the number of sessions a family require. There is a reasonably strong evidence base to support targeted work with both parents and children.

Click here to download the full paper :
www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/1421080402.pdf
This review is also published in full: Health Education, Vol 108, No 4, Pages 272-287.

References:
  • The health and well-being Issue: London InstEd: Issue Five, Summer Term 2008: Pages 14,15.
    Click here to download Mixed Feelings, an article that has been based this research. (PDF Format : Size: 269 Kb)