On 30th April, we hosted a Youth Jury at the University of Birmingham. We were joined by
- Dr David Crepaz-Keay from the Mental Health Foundation,
- Colleagues and young people from the McPin Foundation
- Councillor Kath Scott (Sutton Vesey Ward, Labour Party)
- Ella Bradshaw (Policy and Public Affairs Officer – NSPCC)
- Adrian McLean (Severn Academies Educational Trust)
- Twenty-young people from across the UK
We shared five insights from our research about how social media influencers communicate about mental health:
- Seeing stories of how people have recovered from mental health challenges can provide reassurance and encouragement in some cases.
- Information about supplements for mental health can be misleading and taking them can lead to harm.
- There is a lack of engaging content about mental health that appeals to young men.
- For people with some mental health challenges, accessing information from influencers can make them feel worse.
- Accessing information about mental health can lead to self-diagnosis, which might not always be helpful.
We asked the young people at the Jury to debate which of these insights were most important to them and how we should address them.
Our young people called for five changes:
- Legislation that would require social media sites to verify the accounts of creators with health credentials.
- More face-to-face support to support mental health conversations in ‘third spaces’ and workplaces.
- New co-designed educational resources to help young people consume online mental health content more effectively.
- Content creators to develop authentic campaigns that connect better with young men’s leisure interests.
- Social media sites to promote spaces for positive mental health stories.
We will be working with young people to take forward these ideas over the coming months. If you would like to get involved and help us, please get in touch!