Mind Matters: How tackling loneliness taught us the power of community among care leavers

Poor mental wellbeing is commonly associated with care experienced young people. Their lives of abrupt endings, unreliable statbility, loss of connections and adverse childhood experiences can result in poor mental wellbeing. Alongside a lack of positive family or peer groups support, this can all compound the situation with a sense of loneliness.

When you are tackling poor mental wellbeing, the last thing you may feel like, or even be able to do, is interact with activities such as education, employment or training. Positive activities that can help shift the state of mind to a brighter outlook.

In July 2020, Leicester City Council asked Leicestershire Cares to explore the mental wellbeing needs of care experienced young people in the city, and as a result our Mind Matters project was launched. After one year of the project these are our findings.

Co-production

Leicestershire Cares set up a consultation team, made up of care experienced young people to develop the initial plan for the project’s purpose (strengthen their resilience and wellbeing), its scope, deliverables and even its name: Mind Matters. The group consisted of 5 young people who we were supporting through the pandemic and who had already requested additional support for the mental health/wellbeing and to help them stay in touch with other young people during lockdown.

We held three socially distanced face-to-face meetings in our covid-secure office to discuss the project and what it could deliver for young people. We discussed the impact of the pandemic on young people’s mental health and isolation, and they highlighted high levels of boredom, lack of connectivity and poor eating habits as key issues. Consequently, they helped us develop the ideas for the Fakeaways, crafternoons and regular online social sessions, as well as socially distanced face-to-face group sessions where this has been allowed. This co-production model gave the care experienced young people the tools and ownership of the solutions that would help improve their wellbeing.

Online activities

At the start of lockdown, we quickly moved our support online and provided young people with data SIMs and/or laptops to ensure they could access digital activities. When Mind Matters started in July 2021, we already had a few months’ experience of delivering engaging virtual activities and built on this to ensure that Mind Matters was a success. We used our findings from our ‘Life Under Lockdown’ report (May 2020) to create a programme that would be robust, practical and inclusive.

Crafternoons engaged 8 young people in a six week programme of arts and crafts activities. The materials were delivered to their homes and the young people met up on Zoom along with a facilitator who encouraged them to use arts and crafts as a way of improving wellbeing. All of the young people involved reported feeling more relaxed, less anxious, and enjoyed learning a new hobby with other young people.

Fakeaways was a great success. This fortnightly cooking session involved young people making healthy versions of the takeaways they had been buying during lockdown. The young people chose which meal they wanted to make and we delivered the ingredients to them to ensure they could all take part. They then logged onto Zoom on a Friday afternoon and were taught by a professional cooking tutor from the Adult Education Centre. Eventually, the young people were empowered to run the sessions themselves, and share recipes that connected them to their estranged families and heritage, promoting conversations that connected the group by their share lived experience.

We had 12 regular attendees at Fakeaways, with more who attended just a few sessions. The feedback from the young people was hugely positive. They reported improved confidence, saving money, eating healthier and losing weight. Those with children also said that cooking together had helped improve their relationship with their child.

Coming out of Lockdown

Alongside these activities we held weekly online Chill & Chat sessions where young people joined in film nights, quizzes, and general chats. In the autumn, we were also able to hold some socially distanced outdoor activities, in line with Covid restrictions. These have included picnics, healthy eating sessions at a local community allotment, an outdoor Christmas party, a barbecue, canoeing at the Outdoor Pursuits Centre, wood carving and gardening projects. In total, over 30 young people took part in these activities, the majority of whom said that they had helped them reconnect with other young people and feel less isolated.

Long-term benefits

Participants have so far reported a range of long-term benefits from being involved in Mind Matters. As well as gaining new cooking skills and an understanding of healthy eating from Fakeaways, young people said that the social activities have given them more confidence in engaging with others, given them a sense of belonging and helped them feel able to talk about their experience of being in care.

Some spoke about feeling more independent which has encouraged them to consider what they want to do next in terms of volunteering, training or employment, and how their decisions could support their mental health.

While others have appreciated the chance to catch up on life that was on hold, and create memories many traditional families take for granted.

Going forwards

As lockdown restrictions ease, we will be moving more of our support back to face-to-face delivery. However, we definitely feel that virtual delivery has a role to play, especially for young people who have travel anxiety or are very busy with other commitments (e.g. college) and want to join via video call. As such, we intend to maintain a hybrid model of both online and face-to-face support.

When asked what they would want from the programme if it were to continue, our steering group had lots of useful ideas, including more around how to manage their mental health and develop positive thinking; social activities which also help to develop life skills; and activities which promote physical fitness as well as mental wellbeing.

The young people also identified the power of ‘giving back’ and connecting with their local community, has on their self-esteem and mental wellbeing. They said they were interested in raising money for a local cause by doing something like a sponsored 24-hour gaming marathon, cake bake, art auction or a sponsored walk.

We consulted with our steering group about the idea of having a life coach. The feedback suggests that this could be a useful source of support for those who are ready to take the next step but want some specific advice on how to set and progress towards their goals. Leicestershire Cares has recently started a business volunteer mentoring programme for care experienced young people, and are finding that some of the outcomes have been improved mental wellbeing and belief in themselves. The widening of these young people’s networks are helping them grow.

Others felt that they already had enough support or had a clear destination they wanted to achieve.

Comments and Feedback from Leicester City Council on the Mind Matters project

You may also be interested in reading:

• Mind matters: Ten Tips for care experienced young people's wellbeing around Christmas time
• Mind matters: supporting care experienced young people with their mental wellbeing and reducing isolation

Our work with care experienced young people

• Find out about the work we do with care experienced young people: mental wellbeing, employment and training, campaigning for Care Leavers rights, building social connection.
• Sign our Promise to Care
• Hear the voices of care experienced young people in our Podcasts
• Taking Hold of Our Heritage project. Get a digital download of the book
• Become a mentor to a care experienced young person

For more information about our work with care experienced young people, please contact Jacob Brown: jacob@leicestershirecares.co.uk