- FUNDED PROJECTS -

Projects Funded in Round 3

The projects below start in autumn 2022 and are due to complete in the summer of 2023.

  • Using social media influencers as a first-line digital intervention to improve mental health among adolescent girls at scale

  • Understanding the impact of digital parenting across diverse family ecologies

  • Well-being and the digital worlds of unaccompanied refugee children and young people (URCYP)

  • The ‘Third Space’ School Library: Fostering Digital Capability for Young People’s Mental Health

  • Influencer Culture in the Digital Age: From Princesses to ‘Post’ Envy

  • Enabling Creativity Through Inclusive Co-Design in Game Making to Promote Positive Mental Health Outcomes

  • Connecting Online Mental Health Services with Schools (COMS): What are the risks and opportunities?

  • Identifying Protective and Risk Behaviour Patterns of Online Communication in Young People

Click here for details of Round 1 and Round 2 projects.

Using social media influencers as a first-line digital intervention to improve mental health among adolescent girls at scale

Lead applicant: Prof Phillippa Diedrichs, University of the West of England

Co-applicants/partners:
Dr Nicole Paraskeva, University of the West of England
Dr Dasha Nicholls, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
Prof Mireille Toledano, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
Natasha Lipman, Social Media Influencer and Journalist
Stacie Shelton, Dove Self Esteem Project, Unilever Global Head of Education and Advocacy
Lynsey Smith, Unilever Global Senior Influence Manager
Antony Genova, Google (YouTube)

Grant awarded: £14,516

Duration: 6 months

Project summary
Via a world-first collaboration among adolescents, academics, social media influencers (SMIs), and technology and media companies (Google, Dove), we will pioneer a new approach to delivering mental health interventions to teens. Ensuring reach and engagement, we’re task-shifting intervention delivery from health professionals and teachers to popular SMIs, who will publish video blogs (vlogs) containing evidence-based techniques to thousands of loyal viewers on YouTube, the most popular social media platform for UK teens. Over half of UK teens watch SMIs on YouTube. SMIs offer a unique way to reach teens but have not been utilised for delivering mental health interventions. Our vlogs will address body image, a pressing issue teens say they’re facing, affecting over 60% of girls2, and a linchpin developmental risk factor for depression, eating disorders, self-harm and substance misuse.

With eNurture funding our aims are to:

  1. Adapt techniques from an evidence-based school intervention, proven to be acceptable and effective in improving adolescent body image (Diedrichs 20153; 20214) to deliver via vlogs.

  2. Assemble a group of adolescent girls and SMIs to participate in focus groups to inform the design of the vlogs.

  3. Host a 1-day workshop with girls, SMIs, academics and industry to co-design the vlogs.

References

Ofcom (2019). Media nations: UK. Available from https://www.ofcom.org.uk/data/assets/pdf_file/0019/160714/media-nations-2019-uk-report.pdf

Dove (2017). Girls and Beauty Confidence: The UK. London

Diedrichs, P.C., Atkinson, M.J., Steer, R., Garbett, K.M., Rumsey, N., & Halliwell, E. (2015). Dove Confident Me: Single Session when delivered by teachers and researchers: Results for a cluster randomised controlled trial. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 74, 94-104.

Diedrichs, P. C., Atkinson, M. J., Garbett, K. M., & Leckie, G. (2021). Evaluating the “dove confident me” five-session body image intervention delivered by teachers in schools: a cluster randomized controlled effectiveness trial. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(2), 331-341.

Understanding the impact of digital parenting across diverse family ecologies

Lead applicant: Dr Amy Orben, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge

Co-applicants/partners:
Dr Rachel Goldberg, University of California Irvine, USA
Dr Kathryn Modecki, Griffith University, Australia
Vicki Shotbolt, Parent Zone
Cliff Manning, Parent Zone

Grant awarded: £24934

Duration: 6 months

Project summary
Current conceptualisations and measurements of digital parenting are outdated and pay scant attention to the diversity of digital parenting behaviours. Our interdisciplinary team has spent the last four years reviewing quantitative and qualitative literatures to develop a new quantitative measure of digital parenting that accounts for the broadening scope of digital parenting behaviours and its diversity across the SES spectrum (Modecki et al., in press at Perspectives on Psychological Science). Our validation procedure has resulted in a scale with six dimensions: rule setting and authoritarianism, mediation, monitoring by proxy, technological monitoring, co-use and boundary negotiation (Orben, Mutak et al., in prep).

However, essential questions about how digital parenting behaviours relate to family wellbeing remain unanswered. To translate our foundational work into actionable evidence that can inform policy and practice, the proposed project embeds our digital parenting questionnaire within a wider family framework. We will examine how our six parenting dimensions relate to youth mental health and well-being, as well as to parental and home environmental outcomes, and whether these links vary across different socio-economic circumstances. Working with our NGO partner Parent Zone, this project will also involve co-design with parents and youth, as well as policy and practice briefings.

Well-being and the digital worlds of unaccompanied refugee children and young people (URCYP)

Lead applicant: Dr Linda Morrice, University of Sussex

Co-applicants/partners:
Dr Linda Tip, University of Brighton
Naqeeb Saide, Young Leader, Hummingbird Project, Brighton
Mohammed Alzarei, Youth Ambassador at KRAN, Kent
Fawzia Worsley, Leader of KRAN Youth Forum and Youth Ambassador Programmes
Joshua Samuels, Service Manager, Hummingbird

Grant awarded: £25,557

Duration: 4 months

Project Summary
We aim to examine the multiple ways in which Unaccompanied Refugee Children and Young People (URCYP) engage with digital resources. In doing so, we seek to identify the resources which offer support to URCYP, for example, online resources and social media which support education, language learning and the building of social connections and belonging. We will also explore the risks that access to unfamiliar social media, online material and (transnational) social connections can present for the safety and well-being of URCYP.

The following four objectives guide the project:

  1. Explore how URCYP experience and engage with the digital world to support their social integration and sense of belonging in the UK, and how this interplays with their transnational lives and connections.

  2. Identify what URCYP perceive to be the risks to their safety and well-being from digital engagement and how they navigate these risks.

  3. Co-design and co-produce a pilot project with URCYP which will embed new knowledge aimed at promoting positive mental health among UCRP.

  4. Establish a knowledge base and appropriate methodologies to apply to further research and dissemination.

The ‘Third Space’ School Library: Fostering Digital Capability for Young People’s Mental Health

Lead applicant: Prof Julian McDougall, Bournemouth University

Co-applicants/partners:
Alison Tarrant, Chief Executive, School Libraries Association
Ali Kennedy, School Librarian, SLA member

Grant awarded: £9872

Duration: 6 months

Project summary
The ‘third space school library’ is a hybrid intervention in the digital world of 14-15 year old children with a focus on schools and peers. the project applies a theory of change for dynamic digital literacy to foster wellbeing, positive mental health and good consequences in the digital environment and builds on a collaboration between a research centre specialising in digital literacies (CEMP) and the School Library Association.

The research will generate transferable findings to support capacity- building for school librarians to work with school and external stakeholders to foster better mental health through digital literacy.

To this, the research team will situate the school library as a ‘third space’ between the school (the second space) and the everyday digital literacy practices of students (in the first space – home, family, community), in order to:

  • Synthesise the intersection between school libraries and digital literacy;

  • Identify transferable principles of enabling a ‘third space’ new practice model in school libraries for digital literacy;

  • Provide evidence of the positive impact of digital literacy development in school libraries on the mental health, capabilities and resilience of students to improve their interactions with family, school and peers in and with regard to the digital environment.

Influencer Culture in the Digital Age: From Princesses to ‘Post’ Envy

Lead applicant: Dr Robyn Muir, University of Surrey

Co-applicant:
Dr Emily Setty, University of Surrey

Grant awarded: £16,416

Duration: 10 months

Project summary
This project focuses on online ‘influencer culture’ affecting girls and young women. It aims to understand how girls and young women navigate their media diets and content created by influential digital actors (or ‘influencers’) in relation to their experiences at home, school, and with peers. Digital media brings a ‘closeness’ and ‘realness’ based on perceptions of familiarity and intimacy, offering risks and opportunities for girls and young women pertaining to their self-concepts, self-esteem and body image (Cohen, Newton-John & Slater 2021). The issue is of heightened relevance following covid-19 due to increased digital mediation of personal, social, and public life.

The project will capture the perspectives of girls and young women aged 9-15 as part of a life-course approach. It will identify intervention points resulting in age-stratified insights and recommendations via a New Practice Model and toolkit for schools, families, and community organisations that provides a framework and practical resources for addressing critical media literacy and digital resilience regarding influencer culture. The overarching objectives are to:

  • disentangle the risks and opportunities for girls and young women

  • identify ways of empowering them to harness opportunities and navigate risk online in the context of their wider social environments.

Enabling Creativity Through Inclusive Co-Design in Game Making to Promote Positive Mental Health Outcomes

Lead applicant: Dr Thomas Hughes-Roberts, University of Derby

Co-applicants/partners:
Prof Angela Bartram, University of Derby
Prof Deborah Robinson, University of Derby
Mike Pride, Kingsmead School and Newton’s Walk Schools
Alistair Crawford, St Martin’s & St Andrew's Schools
Ruchita Shaikh, Artcore

Grant awarded: £21,913

Duration: 10 months

Project summary
Digital games, and in particular, online games play an increasingly important role in facilitating and shaping social interactions amongst young people. However, there is also evidence of several issues within gaming and their societies. For example, cyberbullying, harassment, and related toxic behaviour that can lead to inequality and exclusion. What could be a platform for breaking down barriers is often exclusionary with aspects of game culture have been identified as excluding females and ethnic minorities due in part to gender and racial stereotyping, types of activity engagement, on-screen role models. There is, therefore, a need for positive inclusive game design and proposals for what the process for these and the design creation tasks would look like. Creativity in game design itself can lead to development of personal meaningfulness through exploration of personal experience which can positively impact mental health outcomes.

Aims include:

  1. Identify how online games influence the mental health of young players (10-16) and determine the effect this has on relationships with their peers.

  2. Explore how engagement with the creative process of designing games can produce positive mental health outcomes that are measurable and inform society.

  3. Determine the impact on inclusivity where co-design approaches are utilised.

Connecting Online Mental Health Services with Schools (COMS): What are the risks and opportunities?

Lead applicant: Dr Beth Bell, University of York

Co-applicants/partners:
Dan Fitton, University of Central Lancaster
Louisa Salhi, Kooth PLC
Dez Wilson, Kooth PLC

Grant awarded: £20,182

Duration: 10 months

Project summary
Adolescents experiencing psychological distress increasingly turn to digital technology for information and support. Reliance on digital services is changing how adolescents engage with other sources of information and support, including schools. For example, an adolescent in a mental health literacy class may later google symptoms of their own mental illness, rather than speak to school staff. Research has typically considered digital- and school-based mental health information and support independently (in the microsystem) meaning the interaction between the two (in the mesosystem) is overlooked. Yet this interaction is important; more synergistic working between digital- and school-based systems could lead to safer use and improved mental health outcomes.

The COMS project aims to explore the interaction between digital- and school-based mental health services, including how this interaction may be harnessed to improve outcomes for adolescents. More specifically, the project adopts an exploratory qualitative approach to achieve three objectives:

  1. Explore perceptions of how, when, and why digital and school-based mental health services interact, from a range of perspectives (including adolescents, education, and digital sector)

  2. Identify the perceived risks and opportunities associated with the interaction between digital- and school-based mental health services.

  3. Develop an agenda for future research, practice and policy.

Identifying Protective and Risk Behaviour Patterns of Online Communication in Young People

Lead applicant: Dr Emily Lowthian, University of Swansea

Co-applicant: Dr Rebecca Anthony, Cardiff University

Grant awarded: £13901

Duration: 6 months

Project summary
Social-media use can be associated with mood symptoms, risk-taking, and cyberbullying (Ivie et al., 2020; Richards et al., 2015; Vannucci et al., 2017). However, research has focused on time spent online rather than contextual aspects of online behaviours, such as how adolescents engage with social media and whom they engage with (Bekalu et al., 2019; Smith et al., 2021) – factors which may also combine to affect wellbeing. We aim to develop a new wellbeing resource to support positive social-media engagement by young people, based on new knowledge about how particular patterns in the contextual characteristics of their social-media behaviour may either positively or negatively affect mental, physical and social wellbeing.

Objectives:

  1. Identify any patterns evident in young people’s online communication behaviour, examining a number of contextual characteristics, and test whether such patterns differ according to individual s’ characteristics (e.g., gender, socioeconomic status).

  2. Compare wellbeing levels associated with different communication patterns to identify which, if any, either positively or negatively support wellbeing.

  3. Co-produce with young people a concept for a clear and user-acceptable information resource outlining how to adopt social-media behaviours that promote wellbeing, with potential to be developed into a resource for use by government and third-sector stakeholders.