[SOFT MUSIC] We are the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, or ACAMH for short. And this is ACAMH LEARN. Thank you very much for taking the time to view this recording, which focuses on work to address loneliness in schools. First, I'm going to be talking through the content of our new "Brief Guide to Loneliness Among Young People and Children at School." Then, in the second part of the recording, Heleyna Jenkins, Principal Loneliness Champion for the London Borough of Bromley, is going to tell you about work she's been doing in schools. So to introduce myself and the colleagues I worked with to write this guide, I'm Helen MacIntyre. I'm a researcher with an academic background in education and psychology, and my PhD research was on children's peer relationships at school. But for the last few years, I've been working on loneliness, what it is, and how to address it for non-profit organisations, including the Campaign to End Loneliness, as an independent researcher, and now as a research and development manager at an organisation called Neighbourly Lab. For some time, I've wanted to do this piece of work to support school staff who recognise the need to address loneliness among their students, and to do that by sharing what we know from research about this subject. And I've been supported to do that by colleagues at Queen Mary University of London, the Youth Resilience Unit, and the University of Manchester Institute of Education. Jennifer Lau, Laura Riddleston, Pam Qualter, and Lily Verity. And they are academics who've worked on a significant proportion of the academic research which underpins the guide and are currently also working on other research projects which address the issue of loneliness among young people. A couple of things to tell you before I say more about the contents of the guide-- our aim is that it provides a bridge between research, evidence, and practise. So it's substantially based on a review of research evidence about loneliness among children, young people who are at school. And we hope we've managed to present relevant information in a really accessible way to share what we think are the key things to think about for addressing loneliness among children and young people at school. We reviewed a draft of this guide with some educational professionals and with some young people, but we know that others, perhaps you, will have thoughts on the issue. And we want this to be a living piece of work that we'll revise from time to time, and that will be accompanied by a set of resources that we can add to. We're also really interested to hear about examples of how this guide is being used in schools to strengthen belonging and reduce loneliness. So to those ends, the guide and this recording are also opportunities for us to make contact with you. Towards the end of the session, I'll be sharing a link to a feedback and contact form, where you can let us know if you're interested in keeping in touch with us. And that might be because you want to receive updated versions of the guide when they come out, to discuss the work you're doing on loneliness in your school, because you want to share resources that you've found useful, because you're interested in partnering on future research on loneliness at school, or because you want to be kept informed about the progress of current research projects that Queen Mary and Manchester University research teams are undertaking. On to the guide itself. And you'll be able to access it and the accompanying documents from the same web page as the recording. These are the guide's aims. We want to make it easy for school staff to better understand loneliness among their children and young people. And to help them think about whether there's a need to address loneliness in their school, and if so, how this can be done. And I should say, at this point, we've tried to encompass both primary and secondary phases in what we're saying, although there is more evidence focused on the older age group. So sometimes the emphasis will probably feel as though it's more directed at secondary schools. But I think it will be useful across both of those main phases. And this is an overview of the structure of the guide. It's about 10 pages in total. A third of the main text is focused on explaining more about loneliness. About 2/3 is a run-through of things it would be good to think about to create a less lonely school. But there are also these other things in the orange box. A big part of the intention in developing this guide was to share a set of resources that can support your work and be used to develop deeper understanding of the issue. And obviously, a 10-page document certainly isn't going to tell you everything you need to know. So links to selected resources are included at relevant points in the text, with a fuller list at the end. And as I mentioned before, the plan is to add to this to develop a bigger resource bank over time. There's also a set of references, actually, in a separate document, for those of you who want to look more at the research evidence sources that underpin what we've written about here. First, about loneliness. And I should mention here that there is also a separate recording from my colleagues which explains youth loneliness in more detail. But I just wanted to spend a bit of time thinking about what loneliness is. When I did an online session for teachers at the start of the year, I asked them to think about one of their students who they would say is lonely. How do they know that? How do they know they're lonely? What leads them to think that? Some mentioned that their students might perhaps be displaying anger or have low mood. They might be on their own a lot, quiet and withdrawn, avoiding contact with their peers, or interacting with the teachers a lot more than with their peers. Others said that it can be hard to tell, or that the student would need to tell you. And in fact, that's right. It's not easy to know if someone else is lonely. Research that's been done among adults provides some evidence that someone can know if their friend is lonely, but that judgement hasn't been pinned down to specific observable behaviours. So because loneliness is a subjective internal experience, the most reliable way to know if someone is lonely is if they tell you. But even that is complicated because there's a significant stigma attached to loneliness, and so many individuals may be extremely reluctant to talk about it or to ask for help. They may not even understand or acknowledge to themselves that that's what they're experiencing. In the guide, we've distilled the definition of loneliness down to this. "Loneliness comes about when we're unhappy with the quality or quantity of our relationships." We also highlight that it's accompanied by negative emotions, and that it's not the same as being alone. And we emphasise the important fact that everyone experiences loneliness at some times, but the kind of loneliness we're concerned about is severe loneliness, so long-lasting or frequent or very intense. These are some figures which indicate the scale of the problem in our schools. So there's good evidence of high levels of severe loneliness in adolescence. There's more limited data for younger children, but the figures are likely to be lower. And some evidence suggests that for younger children, it'll be closer to the 6% adult figure. But even that, then, that's around 2 children in a class of 30, so thousands of children across our schools. And there's evidence of long-lasting impact even after that severe loneliness has come to an end. So thinking a bit more about those impacts, why does loneliness matter? What do we know about the likely outcomes of the kind of severe loneliness we're concerned about? These are some of the things where there's good evidence of an association with severe loneliness-- more negative attitudes to school, lower educational attainment, poorer mental health, worse physical health and health-damaging behaviours. So it's not just an unpleasant experience. It has important implications. And a worrying feature of loneliness is that it can combine with these other factors to create negative cycles that keep repeating. So you're kind of trapped in loneliness, and there's potentially exacerbating impact on one's frame of mind. It can be hard to escape. So one version of that cycle is that mental health problems can lead to withdrawal from social situations, leading to disruption of relationships. That can compound loneliness with further negative effects on mental health. Another is that pressure and challenges of schoolwork can undermine capacity to address loneliness, which in turn reduces capacity to manage workload at school. It's also important to note that some groups of children and young people are disproportionately affected, and of course, may be faced by a combination of the following issues. So in terms of those groups who are disproportionately affected, it includes teenagers, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, those from marginalised groups who are more likely to face discrimination and to feel different, and those with other challenging life experiences, for example, if you've been bereaved or are a young carer. None of that is so surprising, but it does go to highlight a very important point-- loneliness, including among children and young people, is not just an issue of individuals who are somehow socially inept. It's much more a problem of the environment and context that young people find themselves in. And that is something to very much bear in mind when we're thinking about creating less lonely schools. Adjusting the school environment and a school community's attitudes to one another will be fundamental to addressing and reducing loneliness. And there is evidence that schools can make a difference, specifically, that they can lessen the negative impacts of severe loneliness on students' well-being. So next, I'm going to highlight some of the things to think about for both preventing loneliness at school and for addressing severe loneliness when it does affect students. And I wanted to say at this point that we're really well aware of how hard-pressed schools are. We're not trying to add or we're trying not to add a huge extra burden. Many of the things I'll be talking about will be things that you're already doing, or which involve some tweaking or amendment to things that you do anyway. It's really such a lot about everyday practises. So some broad principles for what we're suggesting. Essentially, my co-authors who have written on this topic suggest applying a belonging check to different aspects of school life to ensure that they're conducive to social connection and to a sense of belonging and wider well-being. Then, because of the need to optimise the school environment that I mentioned, we suggest a substantial focus on the whole school and whole class approaches, less on support for individual young people, although we do also say something about that. Obviously, you already have a huge amount of expertise, and we intend that our suggestions should build on that and should be adapted to need in the context of your school. So what follows is not a strict, inflexible set of rules. And another strong suggestion from previous work on this is that students should be involved in decisions that might have an impact. Since loneliness is a subjective experience, only they will really know what is having a positive or negative impact or making no impact at all. To begin, things for your belonging check at the school organisational level. First, something about monitoring and measurement. Do you know how many children in your school are severely lonely and whether that's changing over time as you take action to minimise it? There are some links in the guide to possible measurement tools you could use as part of the well-being survey if you don't have them included already. And my co-authors are in the process of developing a youth loneliness measurement scale. And there's also a link in the guide, where you can keep updated about progress on that and when it will finally be available. School environments. There's some interesting recent research from the University of Glasgow showing that different places in a school can be more lonely than others. And it's important to consider that some groups may find some places difficult, for example, noisy, crowded school corridors for autistic students. Understanding how places around the school are experienced can inform action to make them safe, comfortable, and socially supportive environments that encourage participation. Next, does staff understand enough about the issue to equip them to address loneliness at school? Do they need training? There's some online training available from the Campaign to End Loneliness here. And there's more information for teachers within some of the resources linked in the guide. And then finally, in this section, are policies informed by what we know about loneliness? For example, it's vitally important to think about loneliness in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion policies, given the connection between loneliness and discrimination that I've already mentioned. An inclusive school environment, one where marginalisation of certain groups is minimised and where diversity is celebrated, is crucial, especially in our current wider social and political climate. And also, anti-bullying policies are critical, since there's a very well-established link between bullying or victimisation and loneliness. And of course, it's not just about the policies. It's about how they play out in practise. The next set of things are about carrying out a belonging check at the interpersonal and individual levels, where you're directly working with young people to improve their understanding of the issues, their social experiences, and their relationships, and also their ability to cope with loneliness effectively when it does arise. First, in terms of understanding, we're suggesting that there's a need for explicit teaching about loneliness and social connection. So I suppose that's very much in the domain of the RHSE curriculum. That's important so young people can understand their own experience of loneliness or that of others, and so that they're better equipped to play a role in creating supportive and inclusive environments. We talk about this teaching needing to be really sensitive, since, going back to that point about loneliness stigma, it often has very negative connotations which cause shame among young people. And that can prevent them from seeking help. And that means that how staff talk to students about loneliness is really important, since it may make someone who's feeling very lonely feel worse or expose them to negative judgments. We have included some links to teaching resources. And I would particularly recommend this pack of lessons linked here. And assembly plans and other things from the Anna Freud Centre in conjunction with the Mental Health Foundation. They are designed around really good understanding of loneliness and its impacts. So those lessons are designed for older secondary-age students to deliver lessons to year sevens or year eights. But they could equally be delivered by a teacher. And I think they could quite easily be adapted for other age groups. So if any of you try them out, it would be great to know how well you think they work. We already talked about the fact that loneliness is accompanied by negative emotions and unhelpful patterns of thinking that can lead to a downward spiral into long-term severe loneliness. So this section is key. Work can be done to try and equip children and young people to better withstand loneliness when they encounter it. That's partly by building up self-confidence and self-esteem, including in relation to social interactions. It's partly about making opportunities to challenge kids' overly negative perceptions of their own social interactions with others, and to give them a balanced view of why things sometimes go wrong in social situations. So showing them it's not all about them being socially inept in some way and demonstrating that there is scope for change. Finally, it's important to help children and young people to develop healthy strategies for managing the negative emotions that can accompany loneliness and which can lead to anxiety and depression. So there's quite a lot to unpack there. And we've included links to a few resources which can help with these more psychological aspects of loneliness. But I'm also hoping to add to the resource bank for this section in particular in the next few months. Next, have children got enough opportunities to interact with their peers at school and support to help them have successful interactions? There are many school contexts and environments with potential for children to interact with one another, to experience relationships, and to learn about how to make and maintain them. So that could be about pedagogy that encourages constructive interaction and uses collaborative and cooperative approaches which strengthen social connection. It could be about playgrounds, where there's time and varied possibility for play and socialising, and for young people to engage in rich interactions with peers who share one another's interests. It could be about eating times that allow time and a positive environment for free conversation with peers. Or it could also be about activity clubs that are on offer. Those environments always need to feel safe and offer access to effective support from adults or peers when it's needed, but without becoming overly controlled or limiting social experience, for example, by setting limits on talking during school meal times. And at the same time, you might also need to consider providing calm, chill-out spaces for children who experience sensory overload or need a break from socialising. Restorative, peaceful time is also important. The University of Glasgow's [INAUDIBLE] work, I mentioned before, may be of interest here because it includes methods for finding out how loneliness can vary between places in a particular school and for individuals, in particular, school places. These could be useful methods for talking to your students about their learning, social, and other school environments, about which of them supports a sense of belonging, safety, and feeling supportive, and for whom, or which are lonely and need to be improved. As I've said, there's a link in the guide to those methods resources. When we talk about youth loneliness, often the first question is, is it because of social media and smartphones? I know it's probably at the forefront of your minds as well. It's a very hot topic. And I know there was research reported recently about the negative impact of more hours on the phone being linked to poorer well-being for school students. And there's been much discussion around banning phones in schools. The early evidence suggests both benefits and detriments, depending on how social media or gaming, other ways of engaging with the internet and online world is used. Perhaps good if it can facilitate authentic relationships; bad if it's used to excess, to disengage, or as a medium for bullying. So the question is whether children and young people need support to use social media in healthy instead of unhealthy ways. Very easy to say; more difficult to achieve. But there is one resource here from UK Youth. And I'm sure there are others that you know about. And it would be great if you can share any of those with us. OK, next, are school staff supportive in ways that minimise loneliness? There's evidence that there are lower levels of loneliness where there's a supportive school and classroom climate, where there's a positive disciplinary approach, and where students perceive teachers as interested in their learning, are supportive of cooperation, and of the development of good peer relationships. Of course, all this requires that teachers and school staff are cared for and supported as well. Finally, is there access to specialised, tailored support for those children and young people who do need it? Some young people will need individual support to overcome severe loneliness and to sort out difficult life challenges that may be causing it or may result from it. It's very much likely to be tied up with mental health difficulties, which we know have grown so much. There are a couple of links to resources here. One to a website that supports children and young people who've been through trauma. One on making psychological support informed by what we know about loneliness. The final part of the guide. As I've already said, we can't cover everything in depth in a short guide, but we've tried to include links to useful resources and will continue to add to them in an accompanying document. These are different types of resources that are included so far. So something on classroom learning assembly resources. Something on school-wide programmes, including on supporting emotional development and emotional awareness. Some online resources focused on different aspects of youth loneliness, but that are perhaps not specifically focused on school life. There is some training materials on loneliness for adults. Some accessible summaries of research on youth loneliness, information on loneliness measurement. Some signposting, which I haven't mentioned, to organisations outside of school who offer support to children and young people experiencing loneliness. And some links to examples of social prescribing services for young people. These are becoming more common. And you might find that they are in existence in your area as well. And there's a list of academic references, as I said, used for writing these guides, which are listed in a separate document. And finally, a link to the guide. But it will also be available via the ACAMH website. Here's the link to the feedback form if you want to stay in touch with us, or you can email us using any of the following email addresses. So many thanks for taking the time to watch and find out about the guide. I'm now going to stop and hand over to my wonderful colleague, Heleyna Jenkins, who's going to tell you about work that she's been doing in schools in Bromley. Thank you. Yes, thank you everyone. Thank you so much, Helen, for your fantastic presentation on the research that you and various other academics have done around how schools can help address youth with loneliness, across the country with many different people. So my role sits within a local authority in the London Borough of Bromley. And my job title is principal loneliness champion. I have the pleasure of delivering and interpreting our fantastic Tackling Loneliness Strategy. Bromley is one of only a handful of local authorities which has a standalone tackling loneliness strategy. And our strategy is for people of all ages, people of all stages of life, and people from all backgrounds that might live within the Borough. And our population is around 330-plus thousand. Bromley is the largest geographic borough in London, and we do have a very large number of schools-- primary schools and secondary schools-- in Bromley. We have come up with a workbook and various different initiatives that we use within our schools to talk about loneliness, to be quite open around this subject, with the idea that knowledge is power. Being able to understand what it is, when it might happen, that it's very normal to experience some kind of transient loneliness within our lifetime as a young person, gives us the power to potentially do something about it, gives us the power to name how we might be feeling, and actually go on to help somebody else, our peers, within our education settings. And we've been doing a number of exciting things over the last two years. And really, it all starts with a conversation. And having a conversation around loneliness can be one of the most powerful things to help reduce the stigma, to have shared experiences, and to help other people to connect through life events that may happen, whether it be through teachers, teaching assistants, and actually sharing that amongst our peers as well, and children and young people within our schools. Helping to start the conversation will help to reduce the stigma in how we feel around loneliness. And we're trying to do that in a number of different ways here in Bromley. In 2024, in February, I opened up an offer for schools to have an assembly on loneliness, to learn in a really easy way in a place which is safe for many young people, primary schools and secondary schools, to talk about loneliness, to find out a little bit about what it was and where are the resources that might be outside of school that you might go to. These can include The Mix. This can include using the Kooth within our Bromley schools. Your establishment might use something different. Looking at our local mental health and well-being providers, which work predominantly within young people within our schools, and then various different websites as well. Alongside that, we also came up with a really handy leaflet so that young people who were attending the assemblies would be able to go home and take something with them, whether it be to have a conversation with their parent, their carer, somebody within the community around what they had learned that day. And as you can see from here, there's lots of different things around what you could do if you felt lonely. Lots of different information, advice, and resources, but also some key understanding that loneliness is not about being on your own. Loneliness is around wanting more quality connections than you might have within your life. And finding that distinction within young people is really, really important. So people can assume loneliness is when you're being on your own. And actually it isn't. So since February last year, we've had over 3,300 young people attend an assembly, whether it be in a primary school or a secondary school around loneliness. And we've had really fantastic engagement since then. We also came up with the idea of creating a workbook-- a kind of workbook that would take up a learning session, whatever that might be within your schools, whether it be 30 minutes or an hour and a half, to explore more about loneliness to help reduce the stigma. And this is usually done on an all-class approach. We have started doing these from year three, all the way through to sixth form. And we have three different workbooks which all have very, very similar questions at the end. We have a primary school workbook. We have a secondary school workbook. And we also have a sixth form workbook. The things which are slightly different around these is the resources at the end of the pack, which will be age-appropriate for different people going into different stages of their life and when they might need help and support within the community. To date, as of today, we have had over 2,500 pupils in Bromley, from our primary and secondary and sixth form areas, take part in a workbook session. And it always amazes me how engaged our students are when it comes to talking about the topic of loneliness. And these are some of the questions in which we talk about. So you would have seen from my slide previously that we had a section all around doing a word search. And that seems kind of silly maybe, and a bit of fun. And the idea around that is that actually, you have to be brave to ask your peer if you need to-- you can't find that word and it's quite difficult. But also, for the people that give help, it makes them feel really good. And that's the same in that premise of loneliness, in that we have to be brave and we have to find that bravery to ask for help when we need it. And also, it feels really good when we can help others. Question 2 looks at people, places, and things that make us feel really good, that make us feel less lonely. Knowing where these are in our lifetime is really important to know where we can go to in places that feel safe and where we can open up with things that bring us joy, to help us to build our resilience, and to feel that we are not alone and find that solidarity. As we move on through the workbook, we have question 3, which looks at describing activities and things that we like doing with other people. The idea around this question is that we are talking around the prevention of loneliness, in that young people can already identify some really key places, areas, do things that they really enjoy doing with other people. And actually growing that network is really important. This has a time or an opportunity for people to share what they like doing. And there is always a full myriad of different things that young people like to do, whether it be sports, crafting, baking, being with a particular family member, a particular friend within school. But they've already identified key areas of doing things that are really important. Within this section, we also talk about the history of loneliness. And actually, this is a really normal human response, that potentially, humans would have felt thousands and thousands of years ago, in that people being together means survival. It's just that our society has changed, and that actually it's very normal for people to feel this way. So when I ask young people that potentially eight billion people on this planet could experience loneliness, a lot of them will say that it's really common, it must be really normal, and that it's universal that young people and others feel this way. Question 4 is my favourite, is to get a window, a slice into people's minds. What does loneliness look like to you? So many people across the world, no matter their age, can find it very difficult to use the right words. But actually, when we start to draw something, there's a huge amount of emotion which can come out of these pictures, so it might give an idea as to what is going on. The reason why we get young people to draw it is because sometimes it's very easy to relate to a drawing or to suggest, "I feel like this." And sometimes when we look back in our life, we can feel like particular drawings that we have, and sometimes we can name them. And being able to name how you feel can sometimes be very powerful in terms of getting the right advice, support, and guidance that you might need in what's going on. We tend to do this as a whole class approach, so that young people will share their drawings and see how similar they are. What we do know around the people that have done these drawings is that common themes about this is using the weather to share how many people feel. Many primary school students will share that there may be one person on their own with many other people together. And we go to secondary schools, they look at things on a much more global level, thinking about people across the world and also thinking about very abstract drawings as well. As we move on through the workbook, when it comes to question number 5, we look quite closely around different challenges and different changes that people might go through across their lifetime. So not just where students are at school, but where they might be in 10, 20, 30, even 80 years' time, and the idea that loneliness can happen when there are changes. And when asked, who can all these changes happen to? They will usually say, everyone. And that's really important to know that loneliness can live across our lifetime. And it's nothing to be scared about because there will be lots of other people all going through the same thing, too. Question 6 looks at how can we actually help somebody else? Which goes back to the premise of the word search, or the first sections, in which we'll go through in the different workbooks, in that we can help other people. Helping others makes us feel good. The key suggestions here from people across primary and secondary schools is that the main things that we can do is talk to that person. We can ask them to play or be included in what we're doing. And finally, to share an ounce of kindness, whether it be telling a joke, comforting somebody, or maybe even giving somebody the space. Those are the key answers which over 2,500 young people have given so far. Question number 7 is thinking about the spaces in which we can be open, which we can be sharing, which we can tell people how we feel with no judgement. Being able to identify these places is really important so that we feel that we have an outlet in that we can share. And having a multitude of different needs means that it gives young people the opportunity to think, is actually there more than one place that I can talk to? Are there people at school, potentially, particular teachers like yourselves, or family members as well, that they can open up to? Having more than one place means that there's more opportunity for young people to share how they feel with others. And then finally, thinking about question number 8, our young people are future generations, which are going to do some incredible things. And they have some amazing ideas around how we can help support other young people who may be experiencing loneliness. So far, we've had all sorts of incredible options, whether it be a lonely club for young people who might be experiencing loneliness to come together, whether it be having a buddy bench at school. It could be introducing a robot to help people feel confident, or it could be actually that everybody does this pack at school, like somebody told me this morning. There are things that loads of young people can do to help support others. One particular school, one young person came up with a fantastic idea within their academy. They said, I would like to speak to people in my Academy. They're part of my trust, and I want to get to know them. And so far, we've started a pilot with a pen pal scheme of young people writing letters to each other between their trusts. We're looking to see how this could potentially be expanded to other schools, to work more closely with schools that might be in their academies to build their network outside of just their locations. And on the back, we find a myriad of different resources for people of different ages to help support them, but also to support their families as well. You will find that there is many different groups on there that people can go to that are experts when it comes to talking to others around their feelings. A reading list-- something which we always encourage in school is ability to read and the importance of that, and finding some real books that are fantastic when it comes to connection and the importance of this. And then finally, within the Borough, we have a platform called Simply Connect Bromley. You may have something similar within your own community. And just looking at community resources out there to support people, whether it be through family activities, certain days out, visiting museums, looking at what the library has to offer, or potentially joining girl guides, brownies or scouts, or something similar. Lots of different groups to help bring young people together and also their families along that journey. So where can you actually find these resources? We want you to use the resources as you see fit. Over the summer months, in between the academic year, we're hoping to put together a page-by-page if you want to use one question per page or to do the whole workbook. So along with some really helpful videos around the aims and outcomes of each question that you can chop and change and use across different groups to supplement the work that you might be doing within RSHE or PSHE within your sessions. So you can find these resources on the Tackling Loneliness Hub-- your one-stop shop online to find lots of different things for people who are interested in loneliness. And I have a very particular group which I run for local authorities who may be really interested in loneliness and the work that's going on across the UK. I'd also love to hear your feedback. How have you been able to use this workbook? Is it really good? Are there things that you could modify? What is the response that you've got back from schools? How have you been able to work alongside pupils, schools, parents, governors to make this workbook work really, really well for you? And you can see my email addresses here. So thank you so much for having me here today. [MUSIC PLAYING]