Purpose of the research
We know that the presence of mental health conditions can span over several diagnostic categories meaning targeted interventions for a single condition (e.g. anxiety) may not reflect the complexity of young people’s needs. This also means that the prevention of mental health difficulties is particularly complex and challenging, because it’s hard to predict in advance which areas should be targeted, and young people may be at-risk of multiple conditions.
We believe it’s important to act early and shift the focus of policy towards prevention rather than treatment. In recognition of this, the ReSET project targets two closely interlinked mechanisms that are fundamental to both resilience and vulnerability to mental health problems in adolescence; emotion processing skills & social relationships.
Good emotion skills (including recognizing the emotions of others or of oneself and controlling or managing one’s emotions) and positive social relationships are both crucial factors in positive mental health. Current interventions tend to focus on training or supporting one of these but not both together. This is despite the fact that emotions are linked to relationships and vice versa, particularly for teenagers. We want to find out if training these skills in unison is a better way to promote and protect young people’s mental health and well being.
Co-production
As well as working alongside experts in the field, a fundamental part of our study is that adolescents play a key role in the design and delivery of the training programme. They will be involved at every stage, and we will use their first-hand knowledge and experience to advise on and approve the training materials. The focus on ensuring that our training programme is truly co- produced with young people will make certain that we develop a programme that is not only deliverable in a real-world setting but is accessible and relevant to young people themselves.