Supporting mental health of looked after children around primary-secondary transition

The three-year project ran from September 2014 to September 2017 and involved the Universities of Sussex and Surrey, the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford, and the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

The research was written up as a PhD thesis accessible here.

This thesis includes three papers reporting on a programme of empirical research conducted to better understand the risk and protective factors, particularly in the peer context, for changes in mental health and well-being for children in care.

The first paper focuses on current provision and reports the findings from a national survey of Virtual Schools that support the education of children in care. This has also been published in an academic journal: Drew, H., & Banerjee, R. (2019). Supporting the education and well-being of children who are looked-after: what is the role of the virtual school?. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 34(1), 101-121.

The second paper presents the findings of a longitudinal study with children not in care (aged 10-13 years), to test our conceptual model in the general population. This demonstrated that peer factors predict changes in mental health problems and well-being over and above parental and other adult support.

The third paper presents findings from a longitudinal study of children in foster care (aged 10-14 years), to test these key pathways in our focus population. This revealed a pattern of differentiated links from peer and adult support to mental health and well-being, and identified self-efficacy (or personal agency) as a key longitudinal predictor of change, especially when moderated by peer relationship quality. The thesis demonstrates the importance of supportive relationships with both adults and peers for the mental health and well-being of children in care. This has important implications for future work where social activities and relationship quality with peers should be considered as potential protective factors, especially in school settings.

For further information, please contact Helen Drew at Sussex (helend@sussex.ac.uk).