Youth Resilience Unit
UNIT LEAD Dennis Ougrin
The Youth Resilience Unit (YRU) is funded by Barts Charity and commenced its work on 1 March 2021.
The overall aim of the unit is to study how young people (flexible age boundaries) use resources in the community to overcome mental distress. It will work closely with, but be separate from, the Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry.
The YRU launched with a study of a large cohort of young people, fully funded by Barts Charity. The development of Emotional Resilience (DEER) Study is a Barts Charity-funded project involving primary school children in Years 3, 4, and 5 in East London. The DEER study will investigate what helps children to develop resilience to “bounce back” from challenging events and thrive. Their findings will shed light on how schools, families and communities can help to support children when they go through difficult times. The study started recruitment at the end of 2022, and is currently following up nearly 850 primary school aged children.
The YRU is currently based at the Newham Centre for Mental Health (London, UK). It will seek collaboration both with the mental health services and organisations for young people in the community outside health services.
Key research areas include emotional disorders, self-harm, suicide and global mental health.
- Anxiety and Depression.
- Loneliness.
- Self-harm and Suicide.
- Global Mental Health.
OUR TEAM
Dennis Ougrin – Unit Lead
Jennifer Lau - Principal Investigator
Iqra Alam - Youth Coordinator
Aleksandra Matanov - Research Programme Manager
Laura Riddleston - Post-Doctoral researcher
Camilla Parker - NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow and Psychiatry Core Trainee
Francois Van Loggerenberg – Research Fellow
Ben Wong – Clinical Research Coordinator
Lauren Jerome - PhD Student
Aisling Murray - PhD Student
Mariana Steffen - PhD Student
Eleanor Keiller- PhD Student
Imogen Hensler - Research Assistant, DEER Study
Julia Michalek - Post-doc, DEER Study
Lauren Turner- Research Assistant
Megan Tjasink - PhD Student
OUR RESEARCH
The unit is home to a range of studies.
DEER Study: The Development of Emotional Resilience study is a Barts Charity-funded project involving primary school children in Years 3, 4, and 5. The DEER study will investigate what helps children to develop resilience to “bounce back” from challenging events and thrive. Their findings will shed light on how schools, families and communities can help to support children when they go through difficult times. For more information, please contact Imogen Hensler.
The Friendship Project: The Friendship Project is a one-year project and adopts a mixed-methods approach, using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The Friendship Project aims to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a new community-based programme designed to tackle loneliness for young and working-age adults in London. The programme focuses on encouraging social interactions and connections through offering community activities and free or low-cost social events for young adults. Further aims of this project are to determine the cost-effectiveness of the programme. It is a collaboration between Queen Mary University London and the University of Exeter and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through the UKRI Creating Opportunities Evaluation Development Fund. For more information, please contact Catarina Duarte.
UNITE Study: The UNITE project spans three years and adopts a multi-methods approach, combining analyses of quantitative and qualitative data. It aims to understand the individual and social pathways to loneliness in young people from socio-economically marginalised backgrounds that can ultimately be targeted in effective interventions to support this group. The project also brings together the expertise of academics, charities working with young people, and young people themselves. It is a collaboration between Queen Mary University London and King’s College London and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). For more information, please contact Lauren Turner.
Youth Loneliness Scale Study: The Youth Loneliness Scale (YLS) study is a three-year project which will develop, evaluate, and disseminate a new developmentally sensitive measure of loneliness with and for young people aged 10-24 in the UK. The project adopts a multi-methods approach, using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, and young people are involved in each stage of the process. It is a collaboration between Queen Mary University of London, the University of Manchester, and King’s College London, and is funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). For more information, please contact Laura Riddleston, or visit the YLS website.
Thinking Styles in Loneliness Study: This aim of this project is to improve our understanding of how some negative thinking styles, such as a tendency to endorse threatening over benign interpretations of social situations, may be involved in the development and maintenance of youth loneliness. The project involves several studies investigating various aspects of this topic, including longitudinal research, ecological momentary assessment, cognitive bias modification, and measure development. The project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). For more information, please contact Laura Riddleston.
National Child Mortality by Suicide Study: This is a case-control study, in collaboration with the University of Bristol. The study utilises the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD), which collects data on all deaths of children and adolescents in England since 2019, via the statutory child death review process. This study aims to investigate the association between completed suicide and previous non-suicidal self-injury, as well as other clinical and sociodemographic risk factors. For more information, please contact Ben Hoi-ching Wong.
The IVY study: This is a national randomised controlled trial that aims to investigate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a type of CAMHS service, Intensive Community Care Services (ICCS), compared with alternative treatment as usual. The trial has a nested qualitative study exploring young people’s experience with ICCS compared to alternative services. Currently, the study is recruiting adolescents aged 12-18 who have received support from any Tier 3 or above CAMHS services. For more information, please contact Ben Hoi-ching Wong.
The TRUST study: The Evaluation of the Teaching Recovery Techniques plus Parenting, a Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial in Ukrainian Schools in Ternopil (TRUST) study. Children exposed to war-related trauma are at significant risk of developing mental health problems, such as symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The aim of this study is to evaluate a community-based intervention called ‘Teaching Recovery Techniques Plus Parenting’ (TRT+P) for Ukrainian children experiencing PTSD symptoms. The objective of the trial is to evaluate whether the Teaching Recovery Techniques Plus Parenting (TRT+P) programme influences child mental health, specifically symptoms of post-traumatic stress, in comparison to similar children who only receive services as usual. For more information, please contact Dennis Ougrin.
Testing the Effects of Project Calm in Ukraine: This project aims to implement and test the effects of a brief digital intervention (BDI) that addresses mental health problems in children who have been exposed to war. The BDI teaches a set of skills that have robust scientific support: Project Calm teaches children to recognize when they are feeling distressing emotions, and to calm and regulate those emotions by using skills such as muscle relaxation, breathing exercises, and calming mental imagery. We are providing this professionally translated intervention to students in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine and evaluating it via a randomized controlled trial with a time-matched control activity on outcomes such as mental health symptoms (e.g., anxiety and depression), life satisfaction, and calming skills. It is a collaboration between Queen Mary University of London, Harvard University, WSEI University (Lublin, Poland), and several partner schools in Ukraine. For more information, please contact Josh Steinberg and Professor John Weisz.
Testing the Effects of Project SOLVE for Ukrainian Children Living in Poland: This project aims to implement and test the effects of a brief digital intervention (BDI) that addresses mental health problems in children who have fled from Ukraine to Poland due to the war with Russia. The BDI teaches a set of skills that have robust scientific support: Project SOLVE teaches children a procedure for solving problems (e.g., problems at school as well as problems with peers and family members). We are providing this professionally translated intervention to Ukrainian students in Poland, and we are evaluating it via a randomized controlled trial with a time-matched control activity on outcomes such as mental health symptoms (e.g., anxiety and depression), life satisfaction, and problem-solving skills. It is a collaboration between Queen Mary University of London, Harvard University, and several partner schools for Ukrainian children who have moved to Poland due to the war. For more information, please contact Josh Steinberg and Professor John Weisz.
"Partnership for Change” Coproduction and feasibility randomised controlled trial of an intervention to improve the mental health of children with a social worker: In many families where children have a social worker, parents have experienced challenges in their own childhoods or have neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g. attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or Autism). These families often experience stress, which can be made worse by money or housing problems. This strains relationships within the family and can lead to child maltreatment and children’s mental health problems. Interventions that focus on improving the child-parent relationship show promise in preventing child maltreatment, yet they often fail to simultaneously address neurodevelopmental conditions and the impact of poverty. We have co-produced, alongside parents who have experience of child and family social work (experts-by-experience), researchers, local stakeholders (e.g., social work managers) and infant mental health practitioners, a new service called Infant Parent Support (IPS). IPS i) adopts a relationship-focussed approach to comprehensive understanding of family functioning, ii). incorporates child and parent mental health and neurodevelopmental awareness, and iii). ensures a poverty aware approach throughout. A service like IPS has never been tested before. Therefore, there are several areas of uncertainty that need to be addressed before moving onto a larger randomised control trial that will assess the effectiveness of IPS when compared to services as usual. Our primary research question asked if it was possible to identify and randomise 30 eligible families across two social care services localities, Glasgow and Bromley, and can enough of these 30 families be retained in the study for 3 and/or 6 months? Our secondary research questions asked about the feasibility and acceptable of both the planned outcome measures and the IPS intervention. We also explored how feasible it would be to collect data to inform the future cost-effectiveness of IPS versus services as usual. For more information, please contact Dennis Ougrin.
The CREATE study: Healing the emotional wounds of illegal child workers through a co-produced arts-based program: A multi-country feasibility study. Child labour refers to paid and unpaid work carried out by children that is detrimental to and endangers them. Child labour affects up to one in four children in low- and medium-income countries and deprives young people of their education, future opportunities and prosperity. Eradicating child labour is an urgent priority for governments and non-governmental organisations. In some Asian countries, “rehabilitation programmes” have been developed aiming to remove young people from illegal employment, provide shelter, food, legal and medical assistance, and help to re-integrate children with their families and in education. Yet, a major barrier to these programmes is managing mental health of rescued child labourers. Delivering interventions to help child labourers improve their mental well-being is an important priority. Yet there is a lack of evidence-based programmes addressing the emotional symptoms of child labourers. Studies indicate that arts-based programmes can reduce emotional symptoms amongst young people who experienced trauma from high-income countries. Thus, this study aims to co-adapt and formatively evaluate an arts-based programme to reduce emotional distress and build re-integration into society in rescued child labourers from India, Bangladesh and Nepal. This study involves a collaboration between local people with lived experience of child labour, local creative practitioners, UK-based arts therapists and researchers from Tribhuvan University (Nepal), Banaras Hindu University (India), University of Dhaka (Bangladesh), Queen Mary University (the leading university, UK), Brunel University (UK) and Edge Hill University (UK). For more information, please contact Dr Laura Paulauskaite.
Developing and Integrating Mobile Community Mental Health Services in Ukraine (DAISI Ukraine): DAISI Ukraine is a four-year, NIHR-funded project (Award ID: NIHR155974) in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association, and Psychabiliti. The project aims to strengthen Ukraine’s mental health care system by refining, embedding, and expanding Mobile Community Mental Health Teams (MCMHTs) nationwide. These MCMHTs are multidisciplinary, linked with primary care, and provide home-based treatment, using principles from European models of community care while addressing local challenges such as the destruction of mental health services during the war, vast geographical barriers, and stigma surrounding mental health treatment. DAISI Ukraine’s objectives are to provide locally relevant evidence to guide the implementation of MCMHTs, enhance local research capacity, and create a global network of researchers focused on community mental healthcare. The project will co-develop and refine the MCMHT model in collaboration with healthcare workers and service users, ensuring it is tailored to local needs. Additionally, it will include conducting a feasibility Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) and establishing long-term sustainability by integrating the model into policy, contributing to the creation of a National Service Standard for MCMHTs, and ensuring that MCMHTs can continue to deliver effective care during and after the war. For more information, please contact Professor Dennis Ougruin or Komal Dayani.
PhD STUDENTS' STUDIES
Lauren Jerome PhD Study: Lauren's PhD is exploring the development of a digital tool, based on solution-focused therapy, delivered by text message to a mobile phone, for young people who self-harm. The aim is to produce a useful, solution-focused, automated tool that young people can access in their own time. This project is in its second year, and so far has established what techniques are used in solution-focused therapy with people who are suicidal and/or self-harm, and what young people and clinicians think is important and would like to see included in this digital tool. The next steps are to create the content of the digital tool itself, and using an existing messaging platform, test an initial prototype with young people in a series of workshops. For more information, please contact Lauren Jerome.
Eleanor Keiller PhD Study: Thus far in her PhD, Eleanor has explored the existing evidence on dramatherapy which is used with children and young people who have anxiety, depression and trauma. The findings of her initial research led Eleanor to look specifically at dramatherapy which takes place in schools. She has since developed a particular interest, and more recently some insight, regarding the active ingredients of the practice in this setting. Eleanor is currently running a case series with dramatherapists and the children that they work with in primary schools, with the aim of developing a logic model for dramatherapy. For more information, please contact Eleanor Keiller.
Aisling Murray PhD Study: This PhD is a qualitative exploration of experiences and perceptions of resilience amongst children and families from marginalised and minoritised communities in the UK. A key method in this project is body mapping, a visual arts-based method which involves tracing the body to produce a life-sized outline then filled with words, colours and symbols to reflect embodied experiences. For more information, please contact Aisling Murray.
Mariana Steffen PhD Study: This PhD is exploring the potential of Social Prescribing (SP) for children and young people with mental health difficulties. The aim is to identify the active ingredients and main benefits of SP programmes for this population. This project is a collaboration with the London Borough of Newham, which runs the Newham Multi-Agency Collective (New-MAC). The New-MAC links young people with emotional, behavioural and mental health difficulties with local organisations and services in the borough, offering alternative, non-medical sources of support such as physical activity, mentoring, arts and creative workshops. Mariana is currently working with the local authority and partner organisations to develop an evaluation framework for the New-MAC, which will help to understand how the programme works, how young people and their families feel about it and what benefits it can bring. For more information, please contact Mariana Steffen.
Megan Tjasink PhD Study: This PhD explores, develops, and tests the application of art therapy to mitigate burnout and psychosocial distress in hospital clinicians. This study has applied a mixed methods approach which includes a systematic review of existing evidence, development of a group art therapy intervention for hospital clinicians, a waitlist randomised controlled trial and a qualitative analysis of participant experience. For more information, please contact Megan Tjasink.
CONTACT
Newham Centre for Mental Health
Victoria Amoah: v.amoah@qmul.ac.uk