‘My Place’: Exploring belonging with young people in Havering 

By Elena Conroy, Implementation Manager, UCLPartners, and Shirley Jackson, Managing Director and Founder, Youth Unity 

Across the UK, the mental health and wellbeing of young people is deteriorating. While the COVID-19 pandemic intensified these challenges, they long pre-date it, and inequalities in mental health outcomes continue to widen. Too often policy, research, and practice focus on treating mental ill health rather than addressing the social and environmental factors that cause it. For many young people, these challenges have lasting impacts across their lives. 

Why Kailo is part of the answer 

Mental health has been a priority for UCLPartners for many years. Our work centres around collaborating with voluntary sector partners and on research initiatives that are grounded in the community.  

Kailo is a place-based initiative we are working on, designed to explore and address the root causes of poor mental health among young people. By bringing together young people, local communities and public service partners our goal is to understand the social determinants shaping mental health and co-develop solutions that are grounded in what young people say matters most. 

Initially launching in North Devon and Newham, East London, Kailo has now expanded into Havering and Camden. 

How can we help young people in Havering feel welcomed, valued and connected? 

Through engagement in local schools, young people in Havering consistently highlighted a lack of belonging as a key issue affecting their wellbeing. Feeling unseen, excluded, or disconnected can significantly impact mental health, particularly during adolescence. As a result, the focus of Kailo in Havering is centred on a single challenge question: ‘How can we help young people in Havering feel welcomed, valued, and connected – no matter their background, race, gender, or sexuality?’ 

This work is being delivered in partnership with Youth Unity, a Havering-based charity providing life-changing support and opportunities for young people. Together, the partnership focuses on prevention and early help, strengthening relationships between young people and services, and ensuring support is available before challenges escalate. 

At Youth Unity, Havering is more than just a delivery area, it is where relationships are built and sustained. The organisation supports hundreds of young people across the borough through mentoring, outreach, wellbeing sessions, and safe community spaces. Time and again, their work shows that the challenge facing young people is not a lack of ambition, but a lack of environments where they feel comfortable, heard, and genuinely valued for who they are. 

Havering is often described as a safe or quiet borough, yet many young people tell Youth Unity that they feel disconnected or unsure where they belong. Support can feel hard to access, and too often young people feel decisions are made about them rather than with them. These experiences don’t always show up as crisis, but over time they can affect confidence, wellbeing and mental health. 

I joined this project because I feel like everyone should feel safe and welcome in our community and I wanted to find solutions to problems that the youth face that makes them feel unwelcomed or unwanted in a community.

Kailo contributor, age 17

This is why the Kailo project is so important. Kailo creates the space to slow down and really listen to young people, not just to how they feel, but why.  

Building solutions together  

We are currently in the ‘Deeper Discovery’ phase where, over four months, a group of young people are taking part in 10–12 weekly sessions. These sessions create a safe and supportive space for them to explore their experiences, build trust, and identify the root causes of the issues they face in Havering. 

Next, we will bring these insights to a wider coalition of community partners, other young people, and relevant stakeholders who will test ideas, approaches, and potential solutions. This will lead to a chosen solution, co-designed by young people, that we can then develop to ensure what emerges is both meaningful and sustainable.