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

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 found and what this means

We studied two groups of young people in care or adopted from care: 269 aged 10–13 and 155 aged 16–17, along with their caregivers. They completed questionnaires about mental health symptoms (like anxiety, depression, and PTSD) and about their wellbeing.

Most young people had high levels of mental health difficulties, especially the older teens, nearly half of whom reported poor wellbeing. For younger teens, mental health and wellbeing didn’t always match up, but for older teens, poor mental health strongly linked to poor wellbeing. Age, gender, and ethnicity didn’t consistently predict wellbeing, though older teens in residential care tended to struggle most. The findings underline the urgent need for early prevention and support to stop problems becoming entrenched.

Systematic review findings

We also reviewed 196 UK studies published between 2012 and 2024 that focused on children in care. We looked at whether and how these studies reported the ethnicity of their participants.

Over half of the studies didn’t report ethnicity at all. When ethnicity was reported, approaches varied a lot, sometimes using broad labels like “White” and “non-White,” and sometimes using more detailed categories. Overall, reporting was inconsistent and often incomplete. We recommend more consistent use of standard categories to improve future research and help inform fairer policies and practices.

What next?

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.