Youth in revolt?

The mental health of young people across the city has been thrust into the national spotlight by deaths attributed to poor mental health at the University of Bristol. Tabloids referred to a “spate” of students taking their own life, and called it a “campus crisis”.

Both of Bristol’s universities have been working to make changes to their wellbeing services, putting systems in place to look after students better and identify individuals in need of help. The University of Bristol has pledged to take a “whole institution approach to wellbeing and pastoral care”, with a new model for university residences that would create more opportunities for peer support, which could be a first step to spotting issues early.

At UWE Bristol, mental health is being made a strategic priority for the university with the pioneering Mental Wealth First strategy that will see student and staff wellbeing put at the centre of spending decisions for the university in the coming five years. The initiative is backed by vice-chancellor Professor Steve West, who is also the chair of the Universities UK Mental Health in Higher Education Working Group.

Off the Record work with young people aged 11-25 from their base on Old Market and other locations around the city

While more is being done by universities, many more students are arriving with a pre-existing condition and so tackling the issue of resilience amongst teenagers is vital for good mental health in later years. Off the Record (OTR) is a charity and self-described mental health social movement for 11-25-year olds, based on Old Market, which is spearheading this change. It seeks to integrate professional mental health services, including structured therapies offered by CAHMS, with a community-based approach to treatment.

“People at 16 can feel they have little control over their lives,” says John McGuirk, a cognitive behavioural therapist at OTR. “They are finding themselves in contexts that they have to stay in, even if they don’t want to. That has a drastic impact on their mental health.” He adds that diagnoses can be very challenging for young people to deal with, and sensationalist reporting in the media can add extra concern about feelings that are part of finding out who you are as a person. “We’re complicated creatures; we all have bright sides and dark sides.”

“I think it’s almost a fallacy that we divide up mental health services for young people and adults,” says Cat Taylor, head of enterprise at OTR. “I think that’s partly why there’s this current panic that there’s a young people’s mental health crisis: what we often see is young people struggling with the same things that adults do. Without sounding too flippant, they’re huge and really normal things that human beings that struggle with around meaning and life motivation.”

Young people can engage with OTR’s services in many ways

The solution that OTR is pushing for steers away from the tick-box culture that can be present in mental health services, and instead looks at interventions and groups with a community focus, from mixing therapy with football to target young men who aren’t as likely to engage with pure talking therapies, sending a youth worker to Empire Boxing Club’s Fighting Chance sessions to build a rapport with people outside a clinical setting, and using virtual reality technology to help young people go work through issues.

At its heart is the aim to give young people the freedom to choose what works for them: returning some of that lost autonomy that might have made them seek help in the first place.

OTR says they hope in the future that a service like theirs doesn’t need to exist

The vision OTR have is to establish resilience within individuals, families and communities by embracing the belief that we all, with practice, can act as counsellors both to ourselves and others. “If we can start transferring these skills that people in this profession have to the community, it’ll be a success,” John says. “I think a lot of that comes down to establishing relationships which are empathic and supportive.”

Cat adds: “Sometimes we buy into the idea that to support young people’s mental health we need to throw more money at services and buy in more professionals. I think actually we’re missing the point, and It’s about drawing on our natural instincts and supporting each other to be our best possible selves.”

Illustration by Tanja Tjong

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