For Children’s Mental Health Week 2024, we want to highlight our interest in the relationships between young people’s mental health and their education.  

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of children and young people living with mental health conditions in the UK. This has been putting support services under severe strain, and contributing to a spike in school absence during Covid that has persisted since schools reopened. 

Children’s mental health is an increasingly significant issue in education

Mental health problems can have a detrimental effect on pupils’ educational progress and attainment via reduced attendance and engagement. At the same time, aspects of the school experience may cause or exacerbate conditions including anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

Many additional factors play a part, including:

• the legacy of Covid
• the cost-of-living crisis and wider socio-economic challenges
• Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
• neurodiversity
• physical health problems
• trauma and bullying
• family and peer relationship issues
• and pressures associated with social media.

This creates a highly complex picture of interacting influences. For those seeking to improve things, it can be hard to know where to start.

We’re funding research to make a difference

Here at Nuffield, we’re thinking about how new evidence on the intersection between young people’s mental health and their education might help improve understanding about and potentially alleviate these urgent problems.

We want to fund research that has the potential to inform policy and practice, and inspire real, tangible change for young people, their families, schools and wider society.  

Key research questions

• What education-related and other factors are causing different types of mental health difficulties among children and young people?
  • Which are the most influential, how do they interact, and how has this picture changed over time?
• How can schools and colleges best support students’ mental health and well-being, either by tackling the causes of problems or through leveraging strengths and building resilience?
  • What barriers do they face to providing this support?
• Are there broader changes in educational environments that might help, such as changes to timetabling, staffing, assessment, or use of space?
• How could education and health work together more effectively to support children and young people with mental health conditions to continue and achieve in school?

Apply for research funding

If you have an idea for addressing these or other pertinent questions in this area, we encourage you to submit an outline application to our Research, Development and Analysis Fund. This year’s deadlines are 11 March and mid-September.    

Find out everything you need to know in our Guide for applicants and short videos.