Systemic prevention of poor adolescent mental health and promotion of social connection and wellbeing

我们的提案代表了一种雄心勃勃的、激进的改善青少年心理健康的方法。青年人面临着众多和越来越多的挑战，包括迅速变化的技术、环境问题以及经济和就业前景不确定。所有这些都会影响他们的心理健康。对于在城市社区中处于不利地位、遭受严重歧视、暴力和创伤的黑人/非洲人/加勒比青年以及在孤立、偏远和农村社区中长大的青年来说，情况尤其如此。支持弱势青年心理健康的典型方法，虽然用意良好，但往往无法提供青年所需的帮助。正规支助往往缺乏-大多数有心理健康困难的年轻人得不到服务的帮助。即使提供了支持，一旦问题发生，往往也为时已晚。提供的支持往往脱离了年轻人生活的现实，可能会无意中助长对社区外帮助的依赖。我们希望将心理健康支持的模式从“自上而下”的服务模式转变为社区主导的方法，这种模式永远无法真正满足年轻人的需求，年轻人在丰富的支持性社会关系和支持网络中发展。有强有力的证据支持我们的观点，即社区内已经存在的社会支持、联系和优势可能是防止困扰许多社区的心理健康状况不佳的削弱和严重影响的最佳来源。我们的方法汇集了领先的科学家、设计师和社区倡导者，探讨当地对年轻人心理健康的影响，包括两个方面：黑人/非洲/加勒比年轻人在不利的城市伦敦社区，和年轻人生活在农村，偏远地区的德文郡。我们的合作伙伴关系由伦敦大学学院的Peter Fonagy教授领导，他是世界领先的青少年心理健康专家，他的团队来自伦敦大学学院和安娜弗洛伊德国家儿童和家庭中心（AFNCCF）。我们的合作伙伴关系还包括系统和数据科学（PenARC和Dartington服务设计实验室），服务设计（Hilary科塔姆和Shift）以及嵌入社区的青年工作（Redthread）。我们知道每个社区都是不同的，有自己的挑战，但也有自己的优势。我们将与年轻人合作，深入了解在密集的城市或偏远/农村社区成长的现实，并绘制这些社区内的机会和优势。我们希望解决心理健康状况不佳的根本原因，而不仅仅是可见的症状。我们将共同设计一系列创新的干预措施，在社区内和社区之间建立社会联系，以便积极促进心理健康是每个人的事，整个社区都有能力支持年轻人茁壮成长。我们还将确保所设计的干预措施和支持系统经得起时间的考验。我们不希望我们的工作是一次性的、有时间限制的努力，在几年内就失败了。这些方法将长期嵌入社区。我们还将设计可以在其他地方采用、采纳和复制的干预措施和办法。我们认为每个社区都应该有工具和方法来利用他们所在地区的优势来促进年轻人的心理健康。因此，我们将与领先的企业家和具有商业头脑的合作伙伴合作，以确保我们的方法可以被广泛采用，但仍然反映了当地的细微差别和特定社区的需求。

Our proposal represents an ambitious and radical approach to improving the mental health of adolescents. Young people face numerous and increasing challenges, including rapidly changing technology, environmental concerns and uncertainty about economic and employment prospects. All of this can affect their mental health. This is particularly true for Black/African/Caribbean young people growing up disadvantaged in urban communities, exposed to high levels of discrimination, violence and trauma, as well as young people growing up in isolated, remote and rural communities. Typical approaches to supporting the mental health of vulnerable young people, whilst well-intentioned, often fall short of providing the help that young people need. Too often formal support is absent - most young people experiencing mental health difficulties do not receive help from services. If support is made available, it often comes too late once problems have taken hold. The support that is provided is often removed from the realities in which young people live, and can inadvertently foster a reliance on help from outside their communities.We want to flip models of mental health support from 'top-down' service models of help that can never realistically meet the needs of young people, to community-led approaches in which young people develop in rich, supportive social ties and networks of support. There is strong evidence to support our view that social support, connection and strengths that already reside within communities may be the best source from which to prevent the debilitating and serious effects of poor mental health that is gripping many communities.Our approach brings together leading scientists, designers and community champions to explore the local influences upon young people's mental health in two areas: Black/African/Caribbean young people in disadvantaged urban London communities, and young people living in rural, remote areas in Devon. These are two often neglected populations.Our partnership is led by Professor Peter Fonagy at University College London - a world leading expert on adolescent mental health, and his teams at both UCL and Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families (AFNCCF). Our partnership also includes experts in systems and data science (PenARC and Dartington Service Design Lab), service design (Hilary Cottam and Shift) and youth work embedded within communities (Redthread). We know that each community is different, with their own challenges but also their own strengths. We will work with young people to deeply understand the realities of growing up in dense urban or remote/rural communities and to chart the opportunities and strengths that reside within these communities. We want to tackle the underlying causes of poor mental health, not just the visible symptoms. Together, we will design a series of innovative interventions that build social ties within and across communities so that the positive promotion of mental health is everyone's business, and that the whole community is well equipped to support young people to thrive. We will also make sure that the interventions and support systems that are designed stand the test of time. We do not want our work to be a one-off, time-limited effort that fizzles away in a few years. Approaches will be embedded within communities over the long-term. We will also design interventions and approaches that can be picked up, adopted and replicated elsewhere. We think every community should have the tools and approaches to capitalise on the strengths that exist in their area to promote young people's mental health. As such, we'll be working with leading entrepreneurs and business-minded partners to ensure that our approaches can be widely adopted, yet still reflect the local nuance and needs of specific communities.