Improving Adolescent Mental Health: Leweston joins the BrainWaves initiative

Today’s young people face difficult mental health challenges in a world full of conflicting, confusing and often incorrect information. BrainWaves is a direct response to this. It aims to improve the quality of scientific knowledge about adolescent mental health and provide evidence-based, practical strategies and educational materials to schools.

BrainWaves is creating a large-scale national student group to participate in research and help develop the project. Our Key Stage 5 pupils have been invited to be in the first wave of schools taking part, and will be working closely to support the University of Oxford in their research.

Mrs Hintze, Leweston's Pastoral Lead said “This is a really exciting and unique opportunity for our KS5 students to have their voices heard surrounding their thoughts and experiences of mental health and wellbeing. Not only will this allow them to share their views, but they will be helping on a larger scale to shape the future of mental health provision for young people. The first cohort study that sixth form students will be invited to participate in will be a questionnaire, with questions relating to topics such as: Themselves, their health and wellbeing, mental health, lifestyles, and social relationships. Year 12 students will be invited to participate in their first questionnaire on Tuesday 19 November, and Year 13 students on Tuesday 26 November. Should they consent, students will also be invited to participate in this again each year for the next few years, which will help provide researchers with a greater understanding of how their mental health and wellbeing changes throughout their transition into early adulthood”.

If you would like to know more about the project, please visit education.brainwaveshub.org