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  4. Kailo: understanding and addressing the root causes of young people’s mental health

Kailo: understanding and addressing the root causes of young people’s mental health

With mental health concerns among the young on the rise, we are leading the Kailo programme in Newham to understand root causes of poor adolescent mental health and support young people and communities to work alongside system leads to design place-based responses.

Mental health problems among young people have increased in recent years, and we know that for many, impacts continue throughout the life course. Kailo is a five-year programme of research and design that works with local communities, young people and public service partnerships to understand and address contextually relevant social determinants of young people’s mental health.   

The programme is initially operating in two ‘Pioneer Places’ – North Devon and Newham, East London. We are leading the work in Newham.  

Using Kailo to address young people’s mental health  

Kailo has three key phases:   

  1. Early Discovery  
  1. Deeper Discovery & Co-design   
  1. Implementation & Adaptation 

Since we started working on this project in August 2023, we have worked with young people in Newham to understand what effects their mental health and wellbeing and co-design interventions to address these. 

To date, we have achieved the following:  

  • Community-led ideas: We have worked within local communities and supported members of the community to build their capacity and identify their resources to shape the co-design phase. This marks the beginning of transferring ownership (and leadership) from Kailo to the community.  
  • Understanding local experience: We have developed a better, and more nuanced understanding of how the opportunity areas are defined and experienced in, and by, young people and the wider local communities.  
  • Built on existing evidence: Incorporated academic evidence and existing data to build the knowledge around opportunity areas.  
  • Identified where impactful change can occur: Understood how the opportunity areas identified in the Early Discovery phase are situated in the wider system and identified leverage points in which impactful change can occur. This included understanding the underlying drivers for the identified opportunity areas, including barriers and enablers.   

We worked closely with community organisations (Dartington Service Design Lab, Fight for Peace, Exit Foundation, Caramel Rock, Newham Community Project and Ambition Aspire Achieve) and two groups of young people in Newham. One group focused on the impacts of violence and crime and how this affects their mental health, whilst another group highlighted that more needs to be done to break the stigma around youth clubs and make them more accessible to all. 

Hear from our young people their experiences of the Kailo programme so far. 

Next steps 

We are now beginning the Implementation and Adoption phase of our work with Kailo in Newham. This will include: 

  • Working with young people and Newham youth organisations to design and generate videos for social media to show the value of youth spaces and engage a wider audience. 
  • Collaborating on a family engagement event in autumn to showcase the activities provided by Newham youth organisations and raise the profile of what is on offer. 

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