What are the ‘active ingredients’ needed for good mental health in children and young people around the world? In early 2021, The Kids Research Institute Australia researcher Dr Amy Finlay-Jones led a global team in trying to answer that question to help better prioritise mental health spending.
For some young people, it’s the environment around them. For others, it’s having strong relationships with friends and peers. And for most, it’s a combination of different factors – a unique recipe that helps them maintain good mental health.
In late 2020, the UK-based charity Wellcome Trust set out to identify which factors had the biggest impact on a child’s mental health, with the aim of targeting the organisation’s philanthropic and research spending.
The Kids Research Institute Australia youth mental health researcher Dr Amy Finlay-Jones led one of two teams tasked with conducting research all over the world to distil ten common ‘active ingredients’ that contribute to youth mental health.
The research put the spotlight on six very different countries: Australia, India, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa and the United Kingdom, with a focus on young people with additional challenges such as those from migrant or refugee backgrounds, chronic illness or disability, and LGBTQA+ young people.
Dr Finlay-Jones said young people in the research countries had plenty in common but were all different – often in surprising ways.
“We thought things like ‘being in nature’ might be universal because it’s accessible, it’s something everyone can do that’s good for their mental health.
“But then when we went to Pakistan, the young people were saying ‘No that’s no good for us, I’m not allowed outside my house without my parent and if I do go out alone it’s dangerous,’ so that was very important for us to recognise.”
Dr Finlay-Jones’ team, alongside colleagues from the University of Liverpool, the Human Development Research Foundation in Pakistan and other major research institutes, interviewed more than 120 young people across the research countries.
Areas identified as ‘active ingredients’ included housing, social relationships, parenting and family, and perspective shifting – being able to actively change your way of thinking. But the number one ingredient identified by young people in all six countries was ‘a sense of purpose’.
“This was important for people in all the countries we researched in, but it was important for different reasons,” Dr Finlay-Jones said. “In Australia, young people were saying ‘we don’t have a sense of purpose’ and it was almost like their sense of purpose was too loosely defined.
“But in other countries, young people said that their purpose in life was determined the moment they were born, and their entire life was mapped out – their purpose was dictated by family, culture and social class.”