MMU launch project to help young people with mental health problems
A new project at Manchester Metropolitan University aims to help excluded young people with mental health problems.
Researchers from the departments of Social Work and Sociology at the University have been awarded funding from The Integrate Movement (TIM) to act as their research and evaluation partner.
TIM is a new social enterprise that will launch this year to design and deliver innovative, mental health informed workshops for services and agencies who work with excluded young people. TIM’s workshops seek to equip every frontline worker to effectively respond to young people’s emotional well-being and resilience needs.
Prof Hugh McLaughlin (pictured), Professor of Social Work and Principal Investigator, said: “This is a great opportunity to influence the mental health of young people and develop street based therapies.”
Dr Hannah Smithson and Richard McHugh from MMU’s Manchester Centre for Youth Studies will be leading the work around creating a young people’s advisory group to ensure that the research reflects the needs of vulnerable young people and actively seeks to involve young people in the design of research tools, analysis and the dissemination of ‘youth friendly’ findings. They were awarded the university’s very first SEIF (SME Engagement Innovation) application to carry out this work.
The other members of the team are Dr Cherrilyn Dance, Dr Jo-Pei Tan, Dave Edmondson and Ffion Evans from the Department of Social Care and Social Work.
