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Jade: Hello and welcome to Disruptive Voices from UCL Grand Challenges. I'm Jade Hunter, your host and the coordinator for UCL's Grand Challenge of Mental Health and Wellbeing. In thisá episode we're taking a deep dive into the Making Visible Invisible Communities project funded by UCL's Grand Challenge of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Young people growing up in poverty are more likely to die younger and spend nearly two decades longer in poor health than their welfare peers. Why might this be the case? Despite years of research and calls for action, this inequality hasn't shifted. This project spoke to around 6414 to 25 year olds and community youth workers currently working with young people across London to explore how youth clubs and local community spaces can support young people's health and wellbeing. So I'm joined today by the project's co leads, Dr. Keri Wong, who is Associate professor of Developmental Psychology at UCL Institute of Education, and Dr. Lusi Morhayim Lecturer and Assistant professor in Social Sciences of the Built Environment Environment at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction. So thank you both for joining me today. Keri if we could start with you, could you tell us a bit of background about the project please? What's it all about and what do you hope to achieve?
Dr. Keri Wong: Yes, certainly. So in this project, Making Visible Invisible Communities, it really is the title, tries to capture some of what we're trying to achieve here, which is that there are lots of young people who are currently, perhaps, maybe not existing, accessing current public health systems or they are not in schools for example, for whatever reasons. Oftentimes our public health system and data that we hold on them on this kind of population is very scarce and limited. And so our project really was trying to understand one kind of how do we get to a better understanding of this very vulnerable and perhaps interesting group that if we were to intervene or provide support for them would lead to huge upsides in their mental health development. And the second question kind of we wanted to ask was focus more on the areas around space and the physical environment as well, knowing that physical environment also plays a huge role in our mental health and physical health development. So our project essentially combines both of these questions together to understand then, you know, whether community centres or youth clubs as we know it in society, whether these might be potential spaces that are helpful and perhaps could be improved on to encourage or foster better mental health for children and young people, specifically in the age group of 14, to 25.
Jade: Brilliant, thank you. And just to follow up, is this something you could Say about the numbers of youth clubs. Like, is this something that has changed over time?
Dr. Keri Wong: Yes, definitely. So the number of youth clubs have definitely reduced over the years. So the figures between 2010 to 2023 in this country, in the UK we saw closures of 1,200 youth clubs around the country. And also, you know, importantly to say as well that the funding for this sector also reduced by 70% for the sector. And so it's kind of no surprise that you know, as key kind of safe spaces, that youth clubs are and spaces where young people who otherwise wouldn't have trusted adults in their lives or access to facilities and also skills to improve their employability or even career trajectories and education. That closing of youth clubs really is a massive issue and the impacts of which we are just starting to realise. And our project does capture some of these experiences that young people are telling us about and how important this space actually is for them.
Jade: Okay, that's really interesting to think about that sort of social change and the impact of that. Lusi So together with the research assistants you interviewed around 60 young people and community youth workers. What themes or patterns stood out and was there anything that surprised you or challenged your assumptions?
Dr. Lusi Morhayim: So we are still in the process of analysing the data. It's massive amount of interviews and qualitative data to analyse, but a few teams are already starting to emerge. I guess I wouldn't be able to say that the interviews radically changed our assumptions, but certainly the conversations we had with young people highlighted why youth centres mattered for them so much and not only in young people's lives today, but also in terms of young people's long term well being and future trajectories. So for the interviews we employed a walkthrough method, where we asked young people to guide us through their youth centres and talk us through the spaces
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Dr. Lusi Morhayim: they must use, they enjoy, or if that's the case, spaces that they avoid. so through this method we were able to see the buildings through their eyes and understand how well the physical characteristics of the built environment and layout, layout or colours used and the overall experiences of the youth centre setup either support or sometimes fail to support wellbeing needs and the activities that are engaged in these settings. So I think one of the most striking themes that is emerging is that these young people are really valuing these centres. They call them as their second home, they call them as refuge for them. We had some people that are escaping overcrowded situations in their homes where they have to share rooms with multiple siblings or extended family members. Which also means, they don't necessarily have the space to do homework or invite their best friends or sometimes even have like quiet time in their home. So the youth centres might be providing the physical space for this kind of ordinary but really important everyday activities. That's one thing. Another thing that we hear quite often from them is that youth centres are also their safe space. It feels less rigid compared to a school setting. For instance. They do feel welcomed and they can be a freer version of themselves where they can talk about personal challenges with the trusted key worker. The key workers are an essential component of these settings. They come there for people and then they get to engage with the activity. So without the connection they have with the key workers they wouldn't be attracted or continuing to come necessarily. What we heard from the key workers is also that they are aiming to create an environment where the young people are going to feel heard and included and they will want to come back and they will learn how to be resilient and confident, that it should feel like an open space for them and they should feel that it belongs to them in a way. an interesting thing is perhaps that in terms of the built environment we observed that some centres had both the resources and the intention to create this kind of feeling. they did this through layouts that are open and visible, and transparent, starting from the entrance to the building and carrying that idea through, office spaces, creating visible divisions and accessible spaces for young people. The young people also communicated that it gives them a sense that there are fewer barriers and hierarchies between them and the key workers. Yet there are some cases where the young people were involved in decisions like repairing a room or adding an additional mural to the space, which is really important for them to feel that their opinions matter in shaping these spaces and that the space can reflect their identities and who they are. So I guess like one of the important takeaways already is that the resources do matter and the lack of resources shows because we were lucky enough to be able to observe a variety of settings. Some of them had state of the art indoor and outdoor sports facilities while others had to squeeze multiple activities and pieces of equipment into a single room or use their main hall for instance, that is supposed to be for dancing and group activities, but share it as ah, also a store storage space and divide it with a curtain. In some cases young people are adaptable. They will best make use of any setting they are given. And I think they will appreciate. But this is something I was rather surprised that there are also maybe rather like less of them. But there are also people that told that cluttered environments can feel overwhelming. They described the centres that lacked dedicated spaces for activities like music or arts or centres that were designed to be generic so that they could be rented out as curbing their creativity or missing colour and personality they wanted to see in places that were supposed to be designed for them. These are some of the emerging themes so far.
Jade: That's fascinating. So this idea of sort of how the environment is interacting or people are interacting with that and how that is affecting how they're engaging with the space and their outcomes. So you spoke a bit about going to different settings. Are they in different regions or are they all in a particular area?
Dr. Lusi Morhayim: There are different parts of London. So we had some in Somerstown, some in Camden, Islington, a variety of areas in London.
Jade: Brilliant, that's great. Thank you. And Keri how do you feel that the project has progressed so far? What impact are you seeing and what's the experience been like working alongside your partners?
Dr. Keri Wong: Yeah, great question.
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Dr. Keri Wong: So the project obviously was running since 2024 and largely in the year 2025. it's still ongoing as we are trying to reach about 100 young people who regularly attend youth clubs to take part in sharing their experiences with our team. As you know mentioned, we are largely covering many of the youth clubs in London, but we were also kind of initially open to youth clubs outside of London. We were actually trying our best to recruit participants from elsewhere in the country but some of those partners fell through due to various reasons because of the population we're working with, they're highly vulnerable. It really is dependent on the youth club workers capacity. A lot of times it is a sector that relies a lot on goodness of people's hearts, to be having everything up and running. And so with the sector itself and also the young people that come through to youth clubs, it is a very tricky population to try and include in our research as well. But certainly we are keen to welcome any other youth club in the country if they are willing to share their views and are interested in taking part in our project. So yeah, so I think in terms of working with our partners it's been kind of up and down as well. It just depends on who has been on board and whether things are still, still running smoothly enough for us to come in as a research team to, to introduce our project. we have right now collaborated with between seven to eight different youth clubs around London in the north and the east and south and west as well. And so that has been really smooth to try and get a sense of how they are different spaces, as Lusi mentioned earlier. But certainly some of the themes that young people are telling us and coming up with are not super different as well in, in terms of the mental health outcomes. I think in terms of the direct impact, we are already kind of sharing our evidence, at least initial, with various different government departments. For example in the Home Office. Right. Last year in a change of government, there was also a lot of talk around young futures hubs through the Labour, Labour Government's manifesto. And so I'll work directly from fed into that discussion as well in informing kind of best practises and working with young people in co creating projects together and methods that we've used to ensure that young people's voices are at the heart of their decision making. So that's one aspect that we have already done certainly I think right now with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, there's also huge emphasis on thinking about the future of childhood and adolescence. a piece of work that I'm actually currently working on as a second there as well, where current project looking at young people who, maybe not in education, employment and training as it were called, meet groups, as well as young people who may have a criminal justice experience, lived experience. Many of these young people also seek youth clubs as safe spaces for them to find their friends, to develop social skills and also as spaces that they can then upgrade themselves or upskill their employability as well. So again here there's huge direct implication with current government policies thinking about children's futures as well. So in that sense, in terms of the policy side, our project I think has really tried to feed in wherever possible the evidence at this stage also that may make sense to informing Aussie decisions. One of the things I think that came out in December 2025, which is the former Health Secretary's call for a review. So it's the Milburn Review on young people who are not in education, employment and training. And again here this is a kind of topic that we are keen to feed into as well in that discussion. So there's quite a lot of live kind of topics at the moment in the policy space, requiring information or more information around how young people of this from this community is also using or needing to be supportive for their mental health and health more broadly. In terms of the research side Certainly again it's kind of uncharted territory as well you know not least that I'm working cross disciplinary with Lusi who's an architect, a researcher by background and me a psychologist, interested in working with young people. I think the grand challenges really highlight or has given us the opportunity to work together and bring our expertise together in terms of research methodology and also to perhaps introduce to our
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Dr. Keri Wong: respective research communities the various kind of new ideas and new ways of working that we are also discovering as we, as this project grows. Certainly we've also presented our findings at ah various conferences. Our research team in terms of our research assistants they are interdisciplinary, some of them as well, you know with backgrounds in architecture and then psychology or M, you know in child psychology and social work as well. So I think the makeup of our team is also quite unique and nice you know in a sense that there's real synergy in the way that we work and the way that we lean into each of our expertise. so yeah I think impacts all around I would say and probably more impacts coming along the way when our project starts wrapping up as well and thinking about more dissemination channels and pathways.
Jade: Amazing. It does sound like impact all the way and it's really interesting to sort of hear more about the interdisciplinarity but also the way you've got these connections between something that could be seen as quite like a community based project and quite a small site and how that's informing policy. So yeah thank you, that's really interesting Lusi So how does this work relate to UCL's grand challenge of mental health and well being? And how does collaboration between disciplines strengthen projects like this?
Dr. Lusi Morhayim: We'll start with the first one. I think it directly is related to grand challenges of mental health and well being because like we mentioned these centres are offering opportunities for the young people to engage in activities that will meet the needs of different groups of people. So there's a variety of offerings so someone always will find something that suits them. There are dance halls indoors and outdoor sports facilities create spaces dedicated for creative activities. Many of them also have a kitchen so people can learn to cook and eat healthy food. There are computer rooms for them to improve their academic achievements. And all of this is like we said before, supported with a key worker, a person that young people trust and admire. So these do help with the academic performance. I provide them with new skills that may support their future employability but most importantly the reason they keep coming back day to day and some of them are spending five days a week, like few hours after their school because they are creating like long lasting connections there and they're spending their time in a safe and enjoyable environment. they recognise the value of this. Like as one of the participants put it, the youth centres offered them a far better alternative to being trapped playing video games at home. And this is their words, they are quite aware that these spaces are keeping them away from the streets and reducing their risk of being involved in crime. And for some people, again some of the things we heard from them is that they can access to these kind of resources without having to pay a membership fee and sometimes it's the only way that some of them are able to access to such opportunities at all. So the youth centres are playing an incredibly important role for health and well being of young people. And you also asked about how is this collaboration strengthening the project? This is our third project with Keri so it's our third collaboration and each one is a more rewarding experience than the previous one. I think that's because our collaborations are allowing us to articulate the relationship between wellbeing and the built environment with a richer set of data than Keri and I would envision individually be able to create. So we are bringing qualitative and quantitative and also built environment spatial research perspectives together. And this interdisciplinary nature of our research means that, you know, we can use the strength of quantitative data to make a strong case for policymakers in regards to positive or negative impacts of the built environment. But also we can show the complexity behind those numbers and what helps or prevents well being to these in depth, personal narratives. So I think that that's why we really appreciate grand challenges to give us the opportunity to work together again.
Jade: It's great to hear and lovely that it's been sort of an ongoing development in terms of your collaboration as well. So my final question would be how might people find out more about the work that you're doing and how might they get involved?
Dr. Keri Wong: So we are as I mentioned, still currently recruiting young people to the project and we have a project website, website which is uclvisiblecospace.com you can go to that website and cheque out how to reach us and contact us as well as follow us in terms of the project updates and what we've been up to, the types of impact we've had and so forth. So I think that would be the most obvious way of connecting with us. Otherwise checking out Lusi or my social
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Dr. Keri Wong: media accounts. we're quite active on x and also LinkedIn, so feel free to find us there as well.
Jade: Is there anything else that you'd like to add?
Dr. Lusi Morhayim: I think overall, what this study is emphasising is both the importance of the quality and, quantity of youth centres for the well being of, at risk young people and vulnerable young people. And also highlighting the need for increased funding for these centres to be, not to be closed and to be more of them to be established, but also design processes that would involve youth perspectives more strongly in creation of the new centres.
Jade: That's a brilliant conclusion. Thank you both.
Dr. Lusi Morhayim: Thank you so much for having us.
Jade: Thank you all for joining me today. It's been really interesting hearing more about the project, which highlights the importance of youth centres, the impact of their design and the role they play in communities, and also the connections they have to broader government policy. You've been listening to Disruptive Voices. This episode was presented by me, Jade Hunter, produced by Decibelle Creative and edited by Annabel Buckland at Decibelle Creative. If you'd like to hear more of these fascinating discussions from Disruptive Voices, make sure you're subscribed to this podcast so you don't miss future episodes. Come and discover more online and keep up with the latest grand challenges, news, events and research. Just Google UCL Grand Challenges.
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