Care leaver relationships, mental health and online spaces
Introduction
Care leaver relationships, mental health, and online spaces is a research project led by Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh. It used participatory methods to explore how care-experienced young people use social media and how this impacts their mental health.
Using participatory, arts-based group work and interviews with young people, focus groups with professionals, and knowledge exchange events, the aims of this project were:
- To better understand which social media platforms young people leaving care use to make and maintain relationships
- What they hope for from these relationships
- What they see as the risks and benefits of these environments for their relationships and their mental health
- What kind of training for professionals might improve support for young people
positive aspects of social media
The objectives of the project were to develop and pilot some training materials for use with staff and young people around these issues and to apply for further funding to follow up key themes identified in the pilot study. Research methods comprised two exploratory focus groups; in-depth interviews with five individuals; and an interactive, creative art workshop to discuss ideas in a more fun and engaging way.
We also worked with a group of young people from the Articulate Trust to produce a short animated film capturing some of the themes of the project for knowledge exchange purposes. We commissioned eight care-experienced artists to make works of art relating to the theme of social media and mental health.
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Project aims
The aims of the project were to:
- Explore which social media platforms young people leaving care use to make and maintain relationships,
- What they hope for from these relationships,
- What they see as the risks and benefits of these environments for their relationships and their mental health
- And what kind of training for professionals might improve support for young people.
Project dates: November 2019 to April 2021
Outcomes & legacy
- Developed a film to support foster carer and residential worker training
- Piloted training course with foster carers and kinship carers which is being further developed with support from Adoption and Family Alliance (AFA) Scotland
- Blog post featured on Iriss, sharing learning outcomes from project
- Key findings written up into a report.
- Publications, including:
- Roesch-Marsh, A., McGhee, K. and Gillon, F. (2021) The Digital Divide: The impact on rights of care leavers in Scotland. CELCIS research report on digital exclusion of care leavers.
- Roesch-Marsh, A. (2020) Digital Exclusion and Care Leavers: It’s time for social work to join this fight. Social Work 2020 under Covid-19 Magazine.
The people involved
Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh is co-director of the Binks Hub and Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh. She is a qualitative research and social work practitioner, and her teaching and research interests are focused around relationship-based practice, care experience, creative methods, social justice and transitions, and social work skills.
Partners included:
- Dr Karen Cooper, University of Edinburgh
- Charlie Hackett, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen
- Dr Ruth Emond, University of Stirling
- Dr Kate Orton-Johnson, University of Edinburgh
- Dr Robin Sen, University of Sheffield
- Dr Maggie Grant, Adoption and Fostering Scotland
- Professor Emily Munro, University of Bedfordshire
- Professor Jonathan Wyatt, University of Edinburgh
- Aftercare Service Transition Team and the Young People’s Working Group @ Dean and Cauvin Young People’s Trust
- Articulate Cultural Trust
This project was funded by eNurture, a UKRI-funded network that fosters new collaborations to promote children and young people’s mental health in a digital world.
About Articulate Cultural Trust
Articulate exists to support arts access and participation by children, young people and adults who are least likely to engage in creative activity, or who face significant barriers to taking part, and yet have the greatest potential to benefit from doing so. This specialist focus supports improvements in learning, achievement and attainment, connectivity, employability, empowerment and well-being.
Cradle of Learning
The Cradle of Learning works with care experienced researchers to make education more accessible and supportive to people with care experience. The Binks Hub co-director Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh has worked with Articulate before in making the animated film for the eNurture project on social media, mental health and care experience. The Binks Hub is excited to work with the Cradle of Learning in the future and learn from their experience of training and supporting young researchers.
Want to get involved in research with the Binks Hub?
If you've got an idea for a research project – or are already working on a research project – which you'd like to talk to the Binks Hub about, please just send us an email. We'd love to hear from you.