ReThink: Mental health and transitions for care-experienced young people

Around one in 30 children experience public care before their 18th birthday. For most this means placement with kinship or foster carers, residential care or adoption.

These children have often had really difficult starts in life. Many have experienced neglect, abuse and other forms of early adversity, such as seeing violence and drug use. Once in care, children may be separated from brothers and sisters and live with many different carers.

We know that these experiences can have a big effect on young people, that lasts long into their adult life. Whilst some young people flourish in care or after adoption, many struggle with mental health difficulties. Compared to other young people, those who have been in care are five times more likely to have a mental health disorder, like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or behaviour problems. Failing to address the mental health needs of these young people has been linked to a range of poor outcomes that they may experience across their lives. This includes things like unemployment or homelessness and contact with the prison system.

While we have strong evidence showing the poor mental health and wellbeing outcomes of this group, there is very little evidence to help us understand what drives these outcomes. While many care-experienced young people struggle with poor mental health, some do not, even with similar early life experiences. We know little about why that is. The ReThink project addresses this question and will provide important information to help improve the lives of young people who have been in care. In particular, the project aims to produce the necessary evidence to develop better quality intervention and support programmes, for the children’s social care, mental health and education sectors.

This project is a collaboration with Adoption UK and CoramVoice.

Project aims

The aim of our research is to learn what processes are linked to the mental health and wellbeing of care-experienced young people and how they manage at two key periods, or ‘transitions’. These periods are:

  • Moving from primary into secondary education
  • Moving into adulthood

We want to understand the role of:

  • Their experiences before they came into care
  • Their individual psychological and social processes. This includes how they see themselves and others, manage emotions, and their feelings about support from friends and from the adults they live with
  • The systems around them, like their experiences of placement changes and of being at school

What we hope to achieve

We want to understand what processes are important for mental health, and what they mean for these young people’s wellbeing (like how they find school or work, or their general happiness). This will help social workers, teachers, and mental health workers better identify those who might need help, and design better support programmes.

We hope that more effective support could enable care-experienced young people to enhance their life chances to reach their full potential.

Lead collaborators

  • Dr Rachel Hiller, University College London
  • Professor Lisa Holmes, Sussex University
  • Professor Julie Selwyn, University of Oxford
  • Professor Katherine Shelton, Cardiff University
  • Professor Iram Siraj, University of Oxford

Partners on this project

University of Bristol

The University of Bristol is internationally renowned and one of the very best in the UK, due to its outstanding teaching and research, its superb facilities and highly talented students and staff. Its students thrive in a rich academic environment which is informed by world-leading research. It hosts the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research.