‘Feeling loved and appreciated: a mixed methods study to examine care-experienced children and young people’s relationships and their association with mental health and wellbeing’.

Background 

There are currently over 80,000 children and young people living in local authority care in England and Wales. A number of factors put these children and young people at risk of poor mental health, and these include: 1) suffering adverse childhood experiences (e.g., abuse) before being in care; 2) experiences while in care (e.g., placement moves); and 3) genetics (e.g., birth parents with mental health issues). Research suggests that half of care-experienced children and young people have clinically significant mental health issues. As mental health issues are linked to causing the person distress as well as poor health and education outcomes it is a significant social care and public health concern. 

Children and young people are most likely to do well in an environment where difficulties are minimised, and warm supportive relationships are experienced. However, many children in care experience changes to placement, resulting in new carers and environments, such as school. These changes may make it more difficult to trust people going forward and increase mental health issues. Supportive relationships are associated with better mental health and wellbeing; however, we know very little about children and young people’s experiences of social support and relationships with key people in their lives in the UK, especially among care-experienced children and young people.