Research and outreach
One of Mental Health Notebook's goals is to ensure the next generation of students will have a healthier mental well-being. We do this by conducting research and collaborating with politicians and schools.
If you tried searching for teenage mental health reports online, you would not find many written by teenagers. This is why when we began reading a few of them, we realised many can be superficial and do not fully reflect how we actually feel. This is why MHN decided to conduct our own research and write a report ourselves.
Firstly, we formed a school council with over 200 students from different schools to gather initial data. After a dozen or so meetings, we used our discussions to create a questionnaire, which we distributed across the UK. We were able to collect over 5,000 responses, representing different demographics across the country (gender, sexuality, school, location, etc.). We then combined the data which we collected with countless discussions we had with politicians, headteachers and students to write this report.
Since we now had data and the voice of 5,000+ people to back up our claims, completing the report was crucial in convincing schools and politicians to listen to us. Since we published our findings in the early summer of 2022, we have collaborated with many decision-makers.
Since contacting different MPs across different parties in the UK Parliament, we have garnered dozens of their support. For example, our founder, Benedict, was invited by Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP to speak in Westminster to present our report and spread awareness of our research. At the UK Parliament, we spoke to many different representatives and successfully convinced them to take action and implement policies that can improve the mental health of teenagers.
In the past year, we have also collaborated with many schools worldwide, including Eton College and St. Georges Ascot in the UK, Kellett School in Hong Kong and many more.