Project to improve adolescent mental health receives £5.3m funding

Five year project led by UCL aims to improve adolescent mental health in disadvantaged communities - A multi-disciplinary team of leading scientists and practitioners, led by UCL, has been awarded £5.3 million to work alongside disadvantaged communities and help improve adolescent mental health. The significant award made by the UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP), will fund a five-year project called 'Kalio', led by Professor Peter Fonagy OBE (UCL Psychology and Language Sciences). As part of a radical approach, mental health researchers will work with specialists who design public services for children and young people, and community activists, to develop locally tailored strategies to combat the underlying causes of mental ill health. Professor Fonagy, who is also  Chief Executive of the Anna Freud Centre, London, said: "The pandemic has placed an unprecedented strain on young people's mental health and even before the pandemic evidence suggests that poor mental health is on the rise in this group. We know all too well that impact and disadvantage are not equally felt in society - young people from minoritised and economically disadvantaged groups suffer the most. Here is an opportunity to design something innovative to address this pernicious problem." The project Kailo, which means connected or whole, will bring together: Leading mental health researchers, system modellers and evaluators from UCL and the NIHR North Thames Applied Research Collaborative, and Exeter University and the South West Peninsula Applied Research Collaborative (PenARC) Social researchers and designers from Dartington Service Design Lab and Shift, and Voluntary sector mental health practitioners from the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families and Redthread.