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The Emotional Lives of Young People in School

This is an information page for families and schools interested in our study on The Emotional Lives of Young People in School.

This study focuses on the role of the school environment in adolescent mental health. It forms part of our wider programme Regulating Emotions – Strengthening Adolescent Resilience (RE-STAR), which aims to reduce the risk of adolescent depression.

In this study we are particularly interested in the experiences of young people with autistic and/or ADHD traits attending mainstream secondary schools, and those of school staff. We want to know how school experiences can be changed to promote the emotional wellbeing of young people, particularly those with autistic and/or ADHD traits.

We hope the findings from our study will support RE-STAR in developing a whole-school strategy to reduce the number and impact of upsetting school experiences for young people in sustainable ways for schools.

The four phases of the study are illustrated below:

Emotional Lives of Young People in School study phases
The Emotional Lives of Young People in School comprises of four stages: discovery (School Researcher Advisory Panel, Youth Researcher Advisory Panel, Scoping in Schools), Shared Exchanges, Understanding the context, and Identify Priorities.

Below, you can find some of the visual outputs from the school workshops, produced by eddy@eddydraws.co.uk and shared with kind permission from the schools. 

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An illustration of student ideas for the perfect school from the Reach Academy.
An illustration of student ideas for the perfect teacher from the Reach Academy.
An illustration of student ideas for the perfect school from the Newman School.
An illustration of student ideas for the perfect teacher from the Newman School.

Meet the Team

Lauren and Myrto will be working with you throughout the study, leading activities in the focus groups and interviews.

Emotional Lives Young People in School team
Emotional Lives Young People in School team

Our researchers:

Our My Emotions and Me project leads:

Dr Susie Chandler is our Project Manager.

More about RE-STAR

Emotional Lives Young People in School is part of a wider project called RE-STAR (Regulating Emotions - Strengthening Adolescent Resilience). To find out more, watch this video from our principal investigator, Prof Edmund Sonuga-Barke:

News & Events

Podcasts

logos for Extraordinary Brains, Arts & Ideas, and Psychology in the classroom

This research is funded by the Medical Research Council.

Keywords

MENTAL HEALTHADHDAUTISMYOUNG PEOPLECHILDRENNEURODIVERSITY