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HeadStart
HeadStart was a six-year, £67.4 million National Lottery funded programme set up by The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK. It explored and tested new ways to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people aged 10 to 16 and prevent serious mental health issues from developing.
HeadStart enabled young people to thrive by building their resilience and providing additional support when and where needed. It looked at how young people’s mental wellbeing was affected by their experiences at school, their ability to access the community services they need, their home life and relationship with family members, and their interaction with digital technology.
Six local authorities led HeadStart partnerships in Blackpool, Cornwall, Hull, Kent, Newham and Wolverhampton working with local young people, schools, families, charities, community and public services to make young people’s mental health and wellbeing everybody’s business.
People with first-hand experience of living with an issue are well placed to identify and shape potential solutions. To make sure support worked, the HeadStart partnerships involved young people in the co-design, commissioning, delivery and evaluation of services.
HeadStart Learning Team
EBPU worked with The National Lottery Community Fund and the HeadStart partnerships to collect and evaluate evidence about what does and does not work locally to benefit young people, now and in the future. Partners which worked with the EBPU on this evaluation included the University of Manchester and the Child Outcomes Research Consortium, a project of the Anna Freud Centre. The collaboration was called the HeadStart Learning Team. Previous partners in the HeadStart Learning Team included LSE and Common Room.
The HeadStart Learning Team used a mixture of questionnaire and interview methods. Young people completed questionnaires every year to help track changes in how they were feeling and behaving over time. Professionals provided information regularly about what was being offered. Professionals and young people took part in interviews annually to explore challenges and opportunities around delivery and what young people found helpful.
The HeadStart Learning Team developed the Wellbeing Measurement Framework (WMF), a suite of measurement booklets for primary school, secondary school and college students. Schools provide a key setting for support and intervention with regard to young people's mental wellbeing and problems, across all age groups, and each WMF is a comprehensive and practical package of validated measures that are designed to assess a range of mental health indices including positive wellbeing, behavioural or emotional difficulties, and the presence and strength of protective factors.
Links
- Addendum to HeadStart evaluation privacy notice
- HeadStart digital event privacy notice
- Addendum to the privacy notice for the Measuring Wellbeing in Schools project
- Measuring Wellbeing in Schools child privacy notice (primary)
- Measuring Wellbeing in Schools parent privacy notice (primary)
- Measuring Wellbeing in Schools child privacy notice (secondary)
- Measuring Wellbeing in Schools parent privacy notice (secondary)