How has Covid affected the mental health of young people?

COVID-19 has caused colleges unprecedented difficulties: closure in response to lockdown, exams results disarray, and planning for a safe and secure reopening, to name but a few. Even before COVID-19, colleges faced significant funding challenges and as such, more than three quarters of school and college sixth forms (78%) have had to reduce or remove student support services or extra-curricular activities – with significant cuts to mental health support.¹ The pandemic has the potential to worsen student mental health at precisely the time that sixth forms are least equipped to help. This blog is the introduction to a series looking at the issue and what we might be able to do about it.

Over the summer, SFCA worked with the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) to look at what effects lockdown had on young people’s mental health, and how colleges can best support students now that they are back in the classroom. It would not be presumptuous to assume that lockdown has had a detrimental effect on everyone’s mental health. However, the evidence for adolescents specifically is slightly more nuanced.² Some studies have found severe impacts, but others have found that this group’s mental health has either suffered less than adults or, in some cases, even improved during the pandemic.³

Unfortunately, the BIT review found that adolescents are at a heightened risk of developing mental health problems compared to other age groups⁴. Social distancing and college closures have resulted in reduced contact time, lack of social opportunities and an increased reliance on technology. Young people have also been unable to access the mental health support services that were available pre-lockdown. 

Colleges will know that planning for the short, medium and long term is difficult. They don’t know about potential future lockdowns and students are rightly concerned about their potential careers, industry placements and transitioning to university.  The year ahead will undoubtedly be difficult, but over the spring and summer, colleges have again shown their resilience and willingness to provide the best possible education and support for their students even under the most difficult circumstances. To support them, we’re putting in place a number of initiatives, and signposting those that are already available.

Support

There are numerous intervention methods and organisations which can support colleges during COVID-19. The BIT review suggests that college-based therapy and mindfulness interventions do result in a reduction in depression and anxiety.⁵ We’re working with BIT in the coming months to interview students and staff in depth and find out more about what problems they’re facing, what strategies colleges are already using, and what they might consider adding to the mix. We’ve also spoken to a number of researchers working on further studies of student mental health, so that we can understand the extent and shape of the problem even further – at the moment, as the mixed evidence discussed above shows, the picture is unclear, and might be very different in different types of school or college. In the following months, we hope to be able to share some of these findings in our blog series. 

In the meantime, organisations such as Minds Ahead provide college specific programmes which provide specialist support and training to senior leadership teams. Education Support are an organisation that is dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of all college staff. Their website provides various programmes and helpful guidelines for improving staff mental health. Apps like Headspace and Calm can provide staff and students with emotional support. Encouraging and developing exercise programmes and promoting the benefits of a healthy sleeping pattern has also been shown to improve anxiety and depression symptoms. 

SFCA wants to support colleges wherever possible. Our first Mental Health Conference brought together three distinctive speakers who provided useful and pragmatic mental health information for delegates. If you are a member, you can watch all the conference sessions here and access the conference documents via the SFCA website. 

SFCA has also relaunched the Mental Health Hub for those working in our member colleges whose responsibilities include mental health. College staff can share good practice, ask questions, or check in with colleagues at other colleges. If you want to join this network please email here. 

Resources

Below are various websites and applications that may be able to provide helpful support:

https://www.thecalmzone.net/

https://www.mindsahead.org.uk/

https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/

https://www.headspace.com/

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/couch-to-5k-week-by-week/

https://www.mind.org.uk/

https://educationinmind.org.uk/resources/

https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/

If you have any questions or want to find out more please email me here.