Children and young people’s social prescribing - latest blog from National Academy for Social Prescribing

Cat Jamieson, the Children and Young People’s National Lead at NASP, explores the role that social prescribing can play in supporting children and young people’s mental health.

Children and young people’s mental health is at crisis point. Around one in five young people in England has a diagnosable mental health problem, and teenage life satisfaction rates are the lowest in Europe.

What’s more, when young people look for mental health support, it is too often hard to find. NHS services have expanded rapidly over the last few years, but they simply can’t keep pace with the growing number of referrals, often resulting in long waiting-times and high thresholds for treatment.

There are welcome initiatives like Mental Health Support Teams in schools and the proposed Young Futures hubs, but as a society we clearly need to do more to address the root causes of the crisis.

While the factors behind mental health problems are complex and multiple, one of the most promising approaches at an individual level is social prescribing.

“Social prescribing” essentially means connecting people to activities, groups or services that can improve their health and wellbeing, based on their unique circumstances and preferences. For adults, this might involve a GP referring a patient to a Social Prescribing Link Worker, who can listen to them and help them develop a personalised plan. Link workers might help someone who is lonely to join a group where they can meet new people, or help someone who can’t sleep because of money worries to get free debt advice.

Three children sit at a table and draw on pieces of paper

In other words, their role is to understand what really matters to each person, and connect them to the most effective possible support. Social prescribing is a non-medical approach, which recognises that health and wellbeing problems are often strongly linked to social factors.

Social prescribing has been successfully rolled out in the NHS since 2019, and the results for adults are extremely encouraging. However, it is far less advanced for children and young people – and the model is inevitably very different.

A young man in a wheelchair and a young woman chat while sitting on a bench on a riverfront

That is why, for the last nine months, we have consulted widely with charities, youth organisations, NHS teams, local authorities and researchers to map projects, find out what’s working well for children and young people, what the gaps are, and to create a vision for the future.

During our research, it became apparent that across England there are some amazing social prescribing programmes for children and young people, but that these are the exception rather than the norm. Funding for these projects is also often short-term.

In some cases, specialist link workers work in GP teams or for local charities, or as part of specific projects targeting specific groups of young people. In other cases, youth workers, school staff and others take what we describe as a “social prescribing approach”, even if they do not use that language.

There are also a vast number of activities, groups and services within communities that make a difference to young people with mental health needs and their families – using sport, music, creativity, nature, or providing practical support for complex issues around money, housing or addiction. However, they are often not well joined up to the NHS or to each other.

In order to roll out social prescribing more widely for children and young people’s mental health, several things need to happen:

Other roles and organisations working with children and young people should know about the “social prescribing approach”. In other words, they should understand the benefits of various non-medical activities and services for young people’s mental health, have clear training on how to talk to young people about what matters to them, know what’s available in their community, and be clear on how to refer young people when necessary.

In order to achieve this, we will need commitment from the NHS and across Government at national and regional levels, and a programme of training, potentially delivered through a national learning centre. There will also need to be improved funding for groups and activities within communities that support young people’s mental health, as well as improved coordination.

It will also be crucial that young people themselves are at the heart of designing social prescribing services at every level – from policy to commissioning to deciding on what is needed in their area.

In some respects, “social prescribing” is a new name for an approach that has existed for many years – but we believe that focusing on mental health from this perspective has clear benefits.

If a young person is struggling to cope because of problems at home, or addiction, or because they don’t feel they fit in, social prescribing means ensuring that there is a supportive adult who is on their side and who listens to them.

It also means ensuring that they can do things that are likely to be good for their wellbeing – like making new friends, being more active, learning new skills or making a difference in their community.

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