Understanding the relationship between mental health difficulties and educational outcomes in children and young people

焦虑和抑郁（“情绪障碍”）是儿童和青年（CYP）中最常见的心理健康状况，并与健康、教育、就业和福祉方面的长期损害有关。近年来，英国政府提出将心理健康与教育进一步整合，学校被认为是预防、识别和治疗焦虑和抑郁等常见心理健康状况的关键场所。因此，学校已成为讨论青少年心理健康的主要焦点。我的研究探讨了儿童心理健康和教育成果相关的方式，这对于更好地了解学校如何影响和支持年轻人的心理健康非常重要。在博士期间，我通过四项研究探索了情绪障碍与缺课之间的关系，每项研究都使用了不同的方法。我的博士研究发现了情绪障碍和缺课之间存在明显联系的证据，尤其是抑郁症，特别是与未经授权的缺课有关。这表明，在临床或教育环境中与CYP一起工作的专业人员应该意识到，高缺勤率可能是潜在情绪问题的征兆，并建议出勤数据可能有助于学校识别需要额外心理健康评估或干预的CYP。此外，我的研究表明，采取措施支持青少年的心理健康可能有助于提高他们的出勤率，从而提高他们的学业成绩。鉴于学校的主要功能是教育，这一点很重要，并提供了一个“钩子”，鼓励学校优先考虑学生的心理健康。虽然我的博士研究发现了情绪障碍和缺课之间的联系，但我的发现也强调了一些尚未解决的问题。例如，我们是否可以为青少年提供旨在改善他们心理健康的干预措施，以提高他们的出勤率或学业成绩？使用出勤或成绩数据作为筛查学校潜在心理健康问题的方法有多有效？情绪障碍可能影响CYP的教育成果的潜在机制或途径是什么，反之亦然？我的目标是继续进行这些研究，并继续探索心理健康和教育之间的关系。这项研究有可能帮助我们找到更好的方法来识别有心理健康问题的青少年，并确保向有需要的人提供及时的干预，同时强调学校在青少年心理健康方面必须发挥的重要作用，这与卫生和教育政策密切相关。该奖学金将帮助我实现这一目标，为我提供一个平台，与研究人员、从业人员、CYP、家长/照顾者、政策制定者和其他从事学校心理健康工作的组织建立网络和合作；参加培训课程，帮助我继续发展我的研究和专业技能；并申请额外的资金来继续我在这个重要课题上的研究。在学习期间，我还将与儿童心理健康慈善机构Place2Be一起进行一个小型研究项目，调查他们以学校为基础的心理健康干预是否有助于提高儿童的出勤率或学习成绩。我还将利用奖学金期间的时间在学术期刊和博客上发表我的研究成果，并在会议和研讨会上展示我的研究成果，以最大限度地发挥我的研究的影响，并确保研究成果与那些从中受益的人广泛分享。

Anxiety and depression ("emotional disorders") are among the most common mental health conditions in children and young people (CYP), and are linked with long-term impairments in health, education, employment and wellbeing. In recent years, the UK government has proposed greater integration between mental health and education, with schools recognised as a key setting for the prevention, identification and treatment of common mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. As such, schools have become a major focus of the discussion about the mental health of CYP. My research explores the ways in which children's mental health and educational outcomes are related, which is important in order to better understand how schools can influence and support young people's mental health. During my PhD, I explored the association between emotional disorders and school absence through four research studies, each using different methods. My PhD research found evidence for a clear link between emotional disorders and school absence, particularly for depression, and especially in relation to unauthorised school absence. This shows that professionals who work with CYP in clinical or educational settings should be aware that high rates of absence might be a sign of an underlying emotional problem, and suggests that attendance data might help schools to identify CYP who require additional mental health assessment or intervention. In addition, my research shows that taking steps to support CYP's mental health may serve to improve their school attendance and, therefore, their academic attainment. This is important given that schools' main function is to educate, and provides a "hook" to encourage schools to prioritise pupils' mental health.While my PhD research identified a link between emotional disorders and school absence, my findings also highlighted further questions that remain unanswered. For example, can we improve CYP's school attendance or academic attainment by providing them with interventions targeted at improving their mental health? How effective would the use of attendance or attainment data be as a method of screening for potential mental health problems in schools? And what are the potential mechanisms, or pathways, through which emotional disorders might impact on CYP's educational outcomes, or vice versa? My goal is to pursue these lines of research and continue exploring the ways in which mental health and education are related. This research has the potential to help us find better ways to identify CYP who are experiencing mental health problems and ensure that timely intervention is provided to those in need, as well as highlighting the important role that schools have to play in the mental health of CYP, which is highly relevant to health and education policy. The fellowship would help me to achieve this goal by providing me with a platform to build networks and collaborations with researchers, practitioners, CYP, parents/carers, policy-makers and other organisations working in school mental health; to attend training courses to help me continue developing my research and professional skills; and to apply for additional funding to continue my research on this important topic. During the fellowship I will also conduct a small research project with the children's mental health charity Place2Be, to investigate whether their school-based mental health interventions help to improve children's school attendance or academic attainment. I will also use time during the fellowship to publish my research in academic journals and blogs, and to present findings at conferences and seminars, in order to maximise the impact of my research and ensure the findings are widely shared with those who serve to benefit from it.