When we asked Centre for Mental Health to evaluate our Young Women’s Mental Health programme, we wanted to find out whether the programme is helping more young women access age and gender specific mental health services and the value of this approach. As a reminder, we set up the Young Women’s Mental Health programme to help improve the mental health of young women 16-25 in the UK in 2021. We fund charities that understand young women’s distinct, intersectional needs and make sure their activities are gender and trauma informed and age appropriate. You can read a summary and highlights from the first year evaluation in our past blog here. Today, we want to focus on seven emerging insights that help demonstrate the value of taking an age and gender specific approach to mental health provision.
1. Youth workers gaining greater understanding of experiences and challenges faced by young women
Youth workers reported that young women often present with multiple and challenging needs, for example long periods of isolation, high levels of anxiety, risk-taking behaviours, lack of family support and parenting. By having an enhanced understanding of these challenges, youth workers have adapted their approach and programmes to be more engaging and accessible to young women.
2. Trauma-informed support is key
The links between trauma and mental ill health are well established and the literature suggests a trauma-informed approach to mental health is ‘using knowledge of the ways in which traumatic experiences affected people to ensure that the support they receive helps them to recover, instead of doing further harm’. Young women are more likely to have experienced some form of trauma, such as through gender-based violence and/or adverse childhood events, and therefore projects have recognised the importance of having trauma-informed support and services for their young women. For instance, one project lead shared:
“The thing that’s really come across to us has been allowing young women to see something that has happened in your past is possibly the reason why you are suffering from these things now…. it’s about allowing them to make those connections”. Lighthouse Project Lead
3. Young women having a safe and exclusive space
All projects noted the benefits of having support and services dedicated to young women. Providing young women with a safe and exclusive space helped young women to feel seen and valued, which encouraged them to open up.
“Having some guys in that space, we won’t get to the issue. This is how I feel. You may get to have a conversation, but you would have to pull back so many layers, you also have to work with the guys, and it’s just a different type of work. But with this (gender specific approach) you can focus a lot more with young women and their initial feelings about things and unpack it with them” – M13 Youth Project Project Lead
4. Young women having immediate and consistent support
‘Taking a gender and age specific approach to support allows more young women to have immediate support for their mental health, whether that is one-to-one or group support. […] it was important that they were able to access support whenever they are ready to engage, which can be quite challenging with the traditional referral route to mental health services.’ – Centre for Mental Health
Many of the young women also reported back that having immediate support and skipping waiting lists was one of the most helpful parts of the support they received. Further, the support offered was flexible, meaning young women could access the support when they were ready – in comparison, traditional mental health services demand young women engage within certain time frame to avoid losing their spot.
5. Creating a peer support network of young women
Young women reported how much they appreciated spending time with other young women and that the diverse group activities they did together made them feel much more relaxed. One young woman described this support network as the following:
“I got to the point in my life where I felt like everyone I needed walked out on me. Having this programme, the support from the girls and the workers, it has made me realise that not everyone walks out and some people in life have your back.” Young woman from NIYF
6. Creating a collective network of support for young women
The project leads noted how their networks have expanded by taking a more age and gender specific approach. They have signposted and/or worked with other support services to help meet the diverse needs of young women, such as finance, housing and (un)employment support. Overall, they felt it allowed them to provide more complete and holistic support for young women’s mental health problems.
‘The news of being age and gender specific worker within the local Stockport area has spread fast, leading to an increase in women accessing support at the Centre. This has also led to 3 other age and gender specific agencies, also supporting the 16-25 age range, in the local vicinity reaching out and we created a partnership with them.’ Stockport Women Project Lead
7. Offering support at a more individual level
The report shared that young woman previously had experienced poor mental health support, such as low capacity of staff/resources, limited awareness of available support or a perceived lack of personalised treatment. Comparatively, the grantees’ projects had higher capacity and offered tailored support and services for young women – overall meeting young women’s needs better. As one young woman from Odd Arts put it, ‘In school, they don’t take us seriously until your mental health gets really bad’.
As we embark on the programme’s next steps, we will continue sharing more milestones and reflections with our community – including further evidence and success of a gender and age specific approach. You can read the First Year Evaluation Report – all the evidence listed above is found of pages 21-31. If you want to learn more about sharing the age and gender specific approach, reach out to us to have a chat.