Mental health interventions examined in English schools

The Department for Education (DfE) has published their report on children's mental health interventions, with the research carried out by Education for Wellbeing over three waves between 2018 and 2024. 

Funded by the DfE, the research explored the impact of school interventions in young people’s mental health, with the Approaches for Wellbeing And Mental Health Literary: Research in Education (AWARE) trial involving 12,166 pupils across 153 secondary schools across England.

The AWARE trial looked into the impact of two school-based curriculum interventions that have been developed and successfully trialled elsewhere in the world: Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM) and The Mental Health and High School Curriculum Guide (The Guide), to see if they were as effective in English secondary schools as they have been abroad.

Developed in Sweden and the US, YAM comprises five lessons, delivered by an external professional, using role play designed to improve pupils’ understand of mental health and reduce suicide rates. It encourages pupils to share their own ideas how to upkeep good menthol health and collaborate with others to resolve mundane dilemmas.

The Guide is a teacher training programme developed in Canada which was adapted for use in English schools during the study. It develops teachers’ understanding of mental health and trains them to deliver a six-session programme to pupils, outlining common mental disorders, tackling stigma, and raising awareness of resources to support those with mental health difficulties.

Schools were randomly allocated one of three mental health intervention approaches: YAM, The Guide, or their usual practice in intervening in students' mental health struggles.

The AWARE trail found that YAM, overall, had no overall significant impact on young people’s emotional difficulties three to six months after intervention, but instead led to worsened emotional difficulties in the long term, nine to 12 months following the delivery of the intervention. Economic analyses found that YAM had a low probability of being considered cost-effective at the first follow-up, but a higher probability of being cost-effective at a second follow-up.

These results led to the conclusion that Education for Wellbeing does not recommend the delivery of YAM in English secondary schools until there is more research into how to mitigate risk of longer-term harm. 

Looking at The Guide, the AWARE trial found that it has a significant impact on young people’s help-seeking at the short-term follow up (three to six months after intervention) , and saw some improvements on some outcomes such as attitudes towards mental health, knowledge of mental health, and mental health behaviours. However, it was also associated with increased emotional difficulties and decreased life satisfaction in the long term, nine to 12 months after intervention. Economic analyses concluded that The Guide has a low probability of being cost-effective.

Education for Wellbeing subsequently recommended that The Guide is not used as an intervention tool in English secondary schools, even though it did show some positive outcomes in the short term. Better research in mechanisms for these negative impacts and how they can be protected against is therefore needed.