What young people are thinking and feeling – an appreciative enquiry by We Mind the Gap.
Lead Organisation: We Mind the Gap
Common challenges:
- Mental health: significant number of young people reported experiencing mental health challenges, with nearly 25% having a diagnosed condition.
- Pandemic impact: Covid lockdowns have led to increased feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and social isolation among young people.
- Aspirations vs reality: While many prioritise good health, wealth, and happiness, they often doubt their ability to achieve these goals.
- Belonging and community: A significant portion feel disconnected from their communities, highlighting the importance of belonging and strong social networks.
Key learnings
- Engaging with young people often requires a referral process, involving outreach through parents, colleges, schools, friends, and family, as they may not directly seek assistance. A trusted referrer is needed: parent, teacher, friend.
- Young people are easily disengaged by the wrong type of language or agendas that don’t appeal to them or feel exclusive. Their attention must be caught quickly, or it never will be…
- The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound and lasting impact on young peoples lives, making it unrealistic to expect them to return to prepandemic norms easily.
- Conventional methods of reaching people for research purposes did not work e.g. social media questionnaire, printed questionnaire.
- Happiness is closely tied to having a sense of purpose and meaning, which many young people lost during the pandemic and struggle to regain.
- Social engagement plays a protective role in young people’s mental well-being, but remote work trends have reduced their interaction with peers and colleagues.
- Habits formed during COVID19 lockdowns, such as increased online time, solitude, and residual social anxiety, continue to affect young people.
- Young people’s communication and worldview have shifted significantly, necessitating a re-evaluation of prepandemic expectations.
- Many young people feel demotivated and unsupported in their learning and development, having missed crucial milestones during the pandemic.
- Building self-efficacy requires facing optimal challenges, but young people may lack confidence in their abilities due to the absence of assessments and examinations during the pandemic.
- Despite challenges, there are inspiring young individuals with unique aspirations, and it’s essential to accommodate and support them, even if their paths don’t conform to traditional expectations.
- Young people do not feel that they are asked, that they have agency. Many commented ‘This is the first time I have been asked for my opinion’
Find out more: We Mind the Gap
Date completed
December 2023