“I’d lost trust and having to tell everyone the same story again and again and again…”: Bottlenecks and barriers to the application of therapeutic approaches within care services’ ecological systems

In the United Kingdom, young people receiving support from social care are among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups and their wellbeing, mental and physical health are found to be worse compared to their peers who have never been in care (Department of Health, 2015). In England, around 63% children in care were looked after due to abuse or neglect in 2018/19 with other reasons including family dysfunction (14%), family acute stress (8%), child’s disability (3%), parent’s illness of disability (3%), and socially unacceptable behaviour (1%) (NSPCC, 2021). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with young people receiving support from services combining mentoring and mental health support, delivered by an independent not-for-profit company in the United Kingdom, to investigate the effectiveness of services in improving outcomes for young people. The services were designed to tackle health inequalities for young people aged between 16 years-old and 25 years-old who experienced problems with mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper is the first of its kind in the UK to explore the impact of combined early-help mentoring and mental health project designed for young people during the pandemic.