Youth Mental Health: Education & Criminal Justice

• The presentation is titled "Intersections Between Youth Mental Health, Education, and Criminal Justice"

Impact of Mental Health on School Performance

• Mental health disorders can significantly affect school attendance and academic performance
• Higher rates of school exclusion occur among students with special educational needs, psychiatric disorders, or conduct disorder/ADHD
• Bullying is a key challenge, with 36.2% of 11-19 year olds reporting experiencing it
• Poor peer relationships and challenging teacher-pupil relationships further contribute to school-specific stressors

School Attendance

• Types of attendance issues include school refusal (due to emotional distress) and truancy (lack of interest or defiance)
• Children with conduct disorder are most likely to truant (11.2%)
• Depression and anxiety are strongly linked to poor attendance
• Poor attendance can indicate underlying emotional problems

Academic Attainment

• Depression and internalizing difficulties reduce short-term academic achievement
• ADHD symptoms can reduce GCSE scores by 2-3 points per symptom
• Anxiety's impact varies by age and context

Recommendations

• Early identification of mental health issues, supportive interventions, and a holistic approach are recommended
• More research is needed on long-term interventions
• Mental health and academic performance are closely interconnected, requiring comprehensive, supportive approaches

Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential (ICAP) Theory

• Antisocial Potential (AP) is the main construct underlying offending behavior
• Long-term AP involves persisting differences between individuals
• Short-term AP involves variations within individuals
• Distribution of AP is highly skewed in the population and peaks in teenage years
• People with high AP are likely to commit various types of antisocial acts

Long-Term AP Influences

• Long-term AP influences include impulsiveness, strain, modeling, socialization processes, and life events

Short-Term AP Influences

• Short-Term AP influences encompass motivating and situational factors

Risk Factors

• Childhood factors for antisocial behavior include hyperactivity, low school attainment, family criminality, and poverty
• Unchangeable factors (gender, ethnicity) or antisocial behaviors are not included

Offending Behavior

• Offending results from the interaction between individual AP and the social environment and is influenced by cognitive processes
• The theory suggests the same model across the range of crime types in long-term AP and allows for different situational influences in short-term AP
• A limitation of the framework is that the simplified model does not show age-specific influences and has difficulty in distinguishing causal factors from risk markers

Overarching Aim

• To cultivate a cross-disciplinary perspective on how mental health intersects with other areas of a young person's life and understand how data from different services helps investigate this

Administrative Data Sources

• Administrative data is created when people interact with public services, and researchers can sometimes access these data to conduct research in the public interest
• Data linkage joins records that pertain to the same entity

Advantages of Linking Mental Health Data

• Near whole-population samples
• Wide range of variables
• Variables public services are interested in
• Relatively inexpensive

Challenges of linking mental health data

• Preserving privacy and confidentiality concerns
• Linkage error can arise
• Representativeness impact linkage bias

CAMHS Data

• CAMHS data includes referral details, discharge details, mental health diagnoses, diagnosis dates, appointment attendance, medication, and therapy

National Pupil Database

• The national student database includes socio-demographic characteristics, SEN provision, FSM eligibility, educational attainment, school absence, school exclusion, and social care information

Research example

• Adjustments for age, FSM, SEN, exclusions, and summer birth included n=47,926
• Female pupils with high absence had 2.77 increased odds of subsequent accepted referral to CAMHS
• Male pupils with high absence had 1.58 increased odds of subsequent accepted referrals to CAMHS
• Male pupils with autism spectrum disorder had higher rates of self-harm presentations to A&E
• Pupils with a depression diagnosis had 40% lower odds of achieving five A*-C grades
• Adolescents with clinically diagnosed depression had relative declines in their school performance over time

Approaches to Tackling Mental Health in Education

• A 2017 paper led to the establishment of Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs)
• 34% of schools and colleges in England are part of the MHST program
• The core functions are to deliver evidence-based interventions, support the senior mental health lead, and give timely advice to school and college staff

School-Based Interventions

• Universal interventions are provided to all pupils
• Targeted/Selective Interventions: Provided to pupils deemed at risk of mental health difficulties
• Indicated interventions are provided to pupils already experiencing mental health symptoms

Place2Be

• Place2Be is a charity that provides mental health and wellbeing services in partnered schools

My Resilience in Adolescence (MYRIAD) Trial

• The MYRIAD trial had a large (n=8,376) RCT to evaluate school-based mindfulness training (SBMT)
• The SMBC teaches mindfulness skills to support resilience and introduces skills like attentional control and self-regulation
• The program combines psychoeducation, class discussion, and brief mindfulness practices instructed by school teachers
• Consists of 10 manualised, structured lessons. 4.7/10 average student rating
• The SMBC also resulted in: increase in hyperactivity, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive scores, and emotional symptoms. Decrease in mindfulness skills
• Students who do the SMBC generally have low acceptability and it's harmful

Suitability of Universal Approaches

• Potentially not working because difficult to appeal specific individuals

Criminal Justice System

• UK law enforcement use a police national database for recordable crimes
• Includes offender sex, ethnicity, and age at the time of the offence
• Also contains offence date, type, proceedings details, and court information

National Pupil Database

• Contains socio-demographic characteristics, SEN provision, FSM eligibility

Research Example

• Pupils who go on to receive offending convictions cautioned during young adulthood show declined school performance
• Declining school performance is associated with depression diagnosis and criminal offending