Mental Health Literacy in children and young people

Oxford Brookes University
Department of Psychology, Health and Professional Development
Prevention Science Group

3 Year, full-time PhD studentship
Eligibility: Home UK/EU applicants who must be permanently resident in UK/EU
Closing date: 14 November 2019
Interviews: 10 December 2019
Start date: January 2020
Bursary p.a: £15,009 for 3 years.
University fees and bench fees at the Home/EU rate will be met by the University for the 3 years of the Studentship.
Supervisors: Professor David Foxcroft and Dr Emma Davies

Outline

Almost a quarter of adults in England experience at least one mental disorder each year, most lifetime mental disorder arising before adulthood and with impacts across health, education, employment, relationships, violence and crime (Campion 2019). Alongside the personal impact on individuals, the World Health Organisation reports that around one trillion US dollars a year in global productivity is lost because of poor mental health (WHO 2019).

Prioritising childhood and adolescence is important since most lifetime mental disorder has arisen by early adulthood. Alongside this, the use of digital technology to improve mental health literacy (Jorm 2012; also see e.g. Morgan et al. 2018) and provide evidence based public mental health interventions is a priority area for further research (Campion 2019).

This PhD studentship will focus on scoping and developing a prototype intervention for use as a public mental health intervention in settings with children and young people, for example families, schools or communities. In the Prevention Science Group at Oxford Brookes University we value the principles of co-production and employ systematic frameworks in our approach to intervention development.

For further information contact Professor David Foxcroft (www.davidfoxcroft.com or [Email Address Removed])

References

Campion J (2019) Public mental health: Evidence, practice and commissioning. Royal Soci ety for Public Health. Retrieved from: https://www.rsph.org.uk/our-work/policy/wellbeing/public-mental-health-evidence-practice-and-commissioning.html

Jorm, A.F. (2012). Mental Health Literacy. Empowering the Community to Take Action for Better Mental Health. American Psychologist 67(3):231-43. doi: 10.1037/a0025957.

Morgan AJ, Ross A, Reavley NJ (2018) Systematic review and meta-analysis of Mental Health First Aid training: Effects on knowledge, stigma, and helping behaviour. PLoS ONE 13(5): e0197102. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197102

World Health Organization. (2019). Mental health in the workplace: Information sheet. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mental_health/in_the_workplace/en/

_ Applicants should have a first class or upper second class honours degree from a Higher Education Institution in the UK or acceptable equivalent qualification in psychology or related cognate discipline (knowledge of research design and statistics is essential). EU Applicants must have a valid IELTS Academic test certificate (or equivalent) with an overall minimum score of 7.0 and no score below 6.0 issued in the last 2 years by an approved test centre_