Findings from the Covid Social Mobility and Opportunities Study (COSMO) show that 44% of year 13 students are classified as “experiencing high psychological distress” post-pandemic.
The on-going cohort study involves more than 11,500 year 13 students, who are now aged 17 and 18.
Of these young people, 25% said they have sought some form of mental health support in the previous 12 months. However, of this number 35% were either on a waiting list or had yet to receive support.
The situation is worse for those young people living in the most deprived areas of the country. Of this cohort, 39% said they were still on waiting lists or waiting for support to materialise.
The most common source of support sought by young people in the study was school counselling (12%) as well as GPs (10%) and CAMHS (9%).
When it came to accessing CAMHS, of the 9% who sought help in the last year, 10% said they did not get any support, while 18% are still waiting. For students in deprived areas, these figures rise to 15% and 25% respectively.
The study lends weight to the suggestion that mental health problems are worse for this generation of young people. While 44% of the year 13 students were considered to be experiencing high psychological distress (between November 2022 and April 2023), this figure in previous studies was much lower – 35% in 2017 and 23% in 2007.
Previous COSMO studies have highlighted that psychological distress is an important predictor of persistent school absence.
When it comes to specific issues, the young people reported:
- Self-harm: 15% had self-harmed in the past year (compared to 18% a year ago). Of those students considered to be experiencing high psychological distress, 28% had self-harmed.
- Bullying: 25% of the cohort experienced some kind of bullying in the past 12 months, including verbal and emotional abuse.
- Harassment: 27% said they had experienced harassment in the last 12 months, including bullying based on their appearance, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
- Pandemic: 31% said they felt the pandemic was still having a negative impact on their wellbeing.
- Long Covid: 13% said they had or had recovered from Long Covid.
COSMO is being led by UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, the Sutton Trust and the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies and has been established to examine the short and long-term impacts of the pandemic and cost of living crisis on educational inequality, wellbeing and social mobility.
The report’s authors have this week called for sustainable and well-funded support for young people experiencing mental health issues, with a focus on improving services in the most deprived areas.
It comes as data released by the Department for Education earlier this year shows that as of 2022/23, only 28% of schools and colleges (about 6,800) are covered by a Mental Health Support Team. This is projected to rise to 35% of schools and colleges by April 2024.
MHSTs support the mental health needs of children and young people in primary, secondary and further education (ages 5 to 18), providing early intervention on issues such as mild to moderate anxiety. Delivery is led by the NHS with support from the DfE.
And almost a year ago, NHS data suggested that almost one in five children aged 7 to 16 have a probable mental health disorder, rising to more than one in four 17 to 19-year-olds (Newlove-Delgado et al, 2022). There are particular concerns about issues including self-harm, anxiety, and loneliness.
Dr Jake Anders, associate professor and deputy director of the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities and COSMO’s principal investigator, said: “The scale of the crisis in young people’s mental health is already well known. But these new findings show that we are simply not doing enough to tackle it. It is vital that we properly resource mental health services across the country. There is no quick, cheap fix to achieving that.
“We must also ensure that these services are targeted to where there is the most need. If more young people living in worse-off areas are not receiving the support that they need, this will widen existing gaps in life chances.”
Commenting on the study, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, also highlighted the impact of mental health difficulties on school attendance and echoed the calls for more support from government.
He said: “The fact that the incidence of poor mental health among young people remains very high is not only the legacy of the pandemic but also the impact of the on-going cost-of-living crisis on families.
“Even before this surge in demand, specialist mental health services in many areas were unable to cope. Consequently, young people with complex needs often face very long and unacceptable waits for the support they urgently require. This in turn plays a part in the high rates of pupil absence experienced across the country with young people missing out on education that is vital to their life chances.
“It is particularly disturbing that this study finds that young people in the most deprived parts of the country are less likely to have received support than those in affluent areas. Once again, it seems that it is the poorest who suffer the most.
“It is of the utmost importance that more resources are put into mental health support services for young people, that those who require specialist treatment receive that treatment immediately, and that the government tackles the very high rate of child poverty in the UK.”
- Holt-White et al: Covid Social Mobility and Opportunities Study (COSMO): Wave 2: Initial Findings – Briefing No 1: Mental and Physical Health, November 2023: https://cosmostudy.uk/publication_pdfs/mental-and-physical-health.pdf