Empowering Young Minds: Mental Health Trailblazer Programme

This project is evaluating the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Trailblazer programme, a nationwide initiative dedicated to funding the creation of mental health support teams working in schools and further education colleges. The aim of the programme is to transform early intervention and access to support, and champion good mental health and wellbeing for all children and young people.

The Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England and Improvement have joined forces to select areas across England to pioneer new ways of supporting children and young people's mental health and wellbeing. These innovative approaches are embedded within schools and further education colleges, with the aim of empowering children to thrive by preventing mental health problems and ensuring early identification and support for those in need.

Key elements of this transformative programme include:

Dedicated Leadership: Each school or college will have a designated leader who will spearhead their approach to mental health and wellbeing.
Mental Health Support Teams: These specialised teams will work directly with schools and colleges, providing crucial support for children with mild to moderate mental health problems and guiding school staff in developing a comprehensive, "whole school approach" to mental wellbeing.

This nationwide programme, launched in 2018, will continue to catalyse change until 2023. The first wave of areas piloting these new approaches are known as "Trailblazers" (Find out details of the areas involved in the programme).

In collaboration with the Policy Innovation and Evaluation Research Unit, BRACE is conducting an early evaluation of this groundbreaking programme, with a specific focus on the Trailblazer areas. This project ran from October 2019 to March 2022.

Our Approach

The evaluation is organised into three work streams:

Mapping Progress: We are charting the starting points and advancements across all 25 Trailblazer areas, providing a comprehensive overview of the programme's transformative journey. This involves rigorous analysis of programme monitoring and other routine data, as well as conducting surveys and telephone interviews with key local stakeholders and organisations. This in-depth assessment will take place in late 2020 and again in late 2021, offering valuable insights into the programme's evolution and impact.
In-Depth Case Studies: Six Trailblazer areas will be selected for a deeper dive into their unique experiences, showcasing the diverse and innovative approaches being implemented. This work will encompass interviews with a diverse range of people involved in the design and delivery of the new approaches and services in their area, such as staff members of the new mental health support teams, school staff and professionals working in NHS children and young people’s mental health services. It will also include focus groups with children and young people.
Shaping the Future: We are committed to building a sustainable framework for evaluating the long-term impact of this groundbreaking programme. Preliminary scoping work will be undertaken to explore and assess potential design options for a longer-term evaluation of the programme’s outcomes and impacts. This will include reviewing evaluations of similar, previous programmes to find out what data they collected, how these data were collected, and what (if any) barriers they faced as well as assessing the quality, completeness, relevance and likely future availability of the routine data.

Our Outputs

Main Outputs

An infographic summarises the study and its key findings

Download the NIHR final report (PDF)

This short animation has been produced in partnership with members of the Institute for Mental Health Youth Advisory Group. It shares the findings from the BRACE evaluation of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.
A video summary of the program findings
Final Report (January 2023), by Jo Ellins, Lucy Hocking, Mustafa Al-Haboubi, Jenny Newbould, Sarah-Jane Fenton, Kelly Daniel, Stephanie Stockwell, Brandi Leach, Manbinder Sidhu, Jenny Bousfield, Gemma McKenna, Katie Saunders, Stephen O’Neill, Nicholas Mays: Early evaluation of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Trailblazer programme: a rapid mixed-methods study
Read Dr Jo Ellin's piece on the findings of the study in The Conversation, April 2024 on More mental health support in schools makes sense - but some children may fall through the gaps
The Power to Persuade (May 2023): Findings from the early evaluation of the UK Children and Young People's Mental Health Trailblazer programme

Interim Findings (July 2021):

Conference Presentations:

HSR UK Conference (July 2021): Early insights from the national evaluation presentation
HSR UK Conference (July 2022): Educational Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP) - Embedding a new health workforce within education presentation

Further Dissemination:

Presentations at conferences, seminars, and other events
Publication in academic journals
Social media engagement (e.g., Twitter)

Our Team

Jo Ellins (Principal Investigator – contact person)
Kelly Singh (Project Manager)
Sarah-Jane Fenton
Gemma McKenna
Jenny Newbould
Lucy Hocking
Jenny Bousfield
Stephanie Stockwell
Katie Saunders
Nicholas Mays (PIRU)
Mustafa Al-Haboubi (PIRU)
Richard Grieve (PIRU)

Working With Young People And Children

From the outset of the project, the evaluation team has been working in collaboration with University of Birmingham Institute for Mental Health’s Youth Advisory Group. In particular, the Youth Advisory Group is co-designing the recruitment and consent process/materials, and research tools, for the focus groups with children and young people.