Charities advise Government on tackling declining student mental wellbeing

A new charity wide report has found that young people’s mental wellbeing has declined during the Covid-era and has called on the Government to act.

Covid-19 uncertainty has presented unique challenges for education with digital poverty, lockdown anxiety, and lack of support affecting students and teachers.

These theme were highlighted in the first annual report by the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition (CYPMHC), a joint campaign of nationwide charities, which said that there are signs that Covid-19: has exacerbated underlying mental health problems of young people, has made new mental health issues harder to treat, and is likely to further increase inequality.

Lockdown anxiety

Studies conducted by charities during lockdown have been grim, with both Barnardo’s, a vulnerable children’s charity, and Girlguiding, a youth charity for girls, reporting many young people struggling with their mental health during lockdown.

“The pandemic and lockdown have been hugely traumatic for young people- separation from friends, anxiety about the virus and financial pressures at home have taken a serious toll on their mental health”, said Barnardo’s Chief Executive Javed Khan.

Barnardo’s found that a third of those studied had experienced a decline in their mental health, and Girlguiding that half of girls had between the ages of 15-18, and a quarter of girls had between the ages 4-10.

These fears have been compounded by data from the Children’s Society’s annual ‘The Good Childhood Report 2020’, that showed that this is part of a worrying pre-pandemic trend- with the average score of happiness for young people down before lockdown.

These findings were also represented by teachers who also have been experiencing higher levels of anxiety and depression, with half of all teachers saying that their mental health declined during the initial stages of the pandemic when replying to a YouGov survey.

Diary of a Young Naturalist, the 16-year-old’s debut, joins 12 other books in contention for prestigious £50,000 nonfiction award

Dara McAnulty, author of Diary of a Young Naturalist.
Natural talent … Dara McAnulty, author of Diary of a Young Naturalist. Photograph: Elaine Hill Photography

The teenager Dara McAnulty has become the youngest writer ever to be longlisted for the UK’s most prestigious nonfiction award, the Baillie Gifford prize, for his book Diary of a Young Naturalist, which he began writing at the age of 14.

The book chronicles a year in the life of McAnulty, who is autistic, as he deals with his family’s move across Northern Ireland and seeks sanctuary in nature, detailing encounters in his garden and in the wild.

At 16, McAnulty is the youngest author to be longlisted in the prize’s history. If he wins the £50,000 award, he would be by far the youngest ever winner of a major UK literary prize. Téa Obreht is the youngest winner of the women’s prize, taking it in 2011 at the age of 25, while Sally Rooney, at 27, is the youngest winner of Costa award for best novel and Eleanor Catton is the youngest winner of the Booker at 28. Last month Marieke Lucas Rijneveld became the youngest winner of the International Booker, at 29.

Sign our letter to Rishi Sunak

Everyone’s lives have been upended by coronavirus. But today, we’re releasing our new report, Left Stranded, that shows that the impact of coronavirus has hit the autistic community worse than most.

This isn’t fair – we need investment in local services to get our community back on its feet. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is due to announce the Government’s spending plans for the next five years – we have to take action now to make sure that autistic people and families aren’t left stranded. Join our campaign by signing our letter to Rishi Sunak.

Since the pandemic, all the things that we used to rely on – schools, shops, transport, seeing friends and family – have changed. While most of us have been able to adapt to our new reality, autistic people and their families have been left stranded. The mental health, social care and education services they usually rely on were cut back during lockdown, leaving them to cope with the pandemic alone.  

The impact on our community has been devastating. Our survey in June and July found that autistic people were seven times more likely to be chronically lonely than the rest of the public. They were also six times more likely to have low life satisfaction. Anxiety was worse for autistic people who require a lot of support, as they were less likely to receive the information and advice they needed.

This is hugely unfair. We can’t allow a generation of autistic people to fall into a mental health crisis. 

We need funding for services that support autistic people.  And we need an action plan to make sure that autistic people are protected from the impact of another lockdown.

Right now, we have an opportunity to bring about these changes. We’re calling on Rishi Sunak to fund services for autistic people in the Government’s upcoming Spending Review. You can help us get his attention by signing our letter to show you support our calls. 

Thanks for your support! Together we can fight for a world that works for autistic people.

All the best,
Beth
Campaigns Manager

P.S. Please share our campaign with your friends and family – the more signatures we have, the louder our voice will be!

Rural poverty: Without public transport or digital connection, mental healthcare excludes children

More support is needed for young people’s mental health in coastal and rural areas, a Centre for Mental Health report shows.

Children living in remote rural and coastal communities in the UK are at risk of missing out on mental health support, says a report published today by Centre for Mental Health.

“While rural life can be good for mental health, children growing up in poverty, with disability or in a marginalised or oppressed community face a high risk of poor mental health with little support close to home.”

The space between us, by Louis Allwood, explores evidence about the mental health and wellbeing of children aged between 8 and 13 years living in isolated communities across the UK. Funded by BBC Children in Need, The space between us finds that children living in remote areas face isolation and struggle to get help for their mental health because of poor transport, a lack of safe spaces to meet in and poor digital connectivity.

Children living in poverty, disabled children, children from marginalised communities and children whose gender or sexual identity is different to most of their peers face especial disadvantages in remote and rural areas. Rural poverty is less visible than in urban areas but can leave children especially isolated and excluded.

Mental health lessons are coming to the national curriculum next week

It’s been a long time coming. Now’s our chance to teach each other well.

Over 1,000 Mental Health Today readers contributed to our research on how mental health lessons should be planned.

Now you can explore our range of trauma-sensitive resources and articles.

You can also read MHT’s ‘anti-glossary’, essential if you want to avoid confounding stigma and symtoms in and out of the classroom.

Find out more…

Insights

• How to create support plans
• How to understand and discuss disorders and self-harm
• How to support children who have experienced emotional / psychological abuse
• Your ‘anti-glossary’ for talking about mental illness and mental health challenges

Premium content

• Explore mental health beyond today through a subscription to Mental Health Knowledge

Discover more

Continue learning about what good looks like in mental health care. Explore the range of mental health books published by Pavilion Publishing and Media, including Mental Health and Well-being in Primary Education.

Mental health education is coming to the national curriculum in England and Wales in September. Find out how to design trauma-sensitive lessons through the MHT Teach Me Well resources featured here.

Know the signs and support options for various mental health conditions through watching the videos and reading the articles in our Disorders Explained information hub.

Keep supporting mental health progress.

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From Barney and the Mental Health Today team.

Elevated rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses, and autistic traits in transgender and gender-diverse individuals

Varun Warrier, David M. Greenberg, Elizabeth Weir, Clara Buckingham, Paula Smith, Meng-Chuan Lai, Carrie Allison & Simon Baron-Cohen

Nature Communications volume 11, Article number: 3959 (2020) Cite this article

Abstract

It is unclear whether transgender and gender-diverse individuals have elevated rates of autism diagnosis or traits related to autism compared to cisgender individuals in large non-clinic-based cohorts. To investigate this, we use five independently recruited cross-sectional datasets consisting of 641,860 individuals who completed information on gender, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses including autism, and measures of traits related to autism (self-report measures of autistic traits, empathy, systemizing, and sensory sensitivity). Compared to cisgender individuals, transgender and gender-diverse individuals have, on average, higher rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses. For both autistic and non-autistic individuals, transgender and gender-diverse individuals score, on average, higher on self-report measures of autistic traits, systemizing, and sensory sensitivity, and, on average, lower on self-report measures of empathy. The results may have clinical implications for improving access to mental health care and tailoring adequate support for transgender and gender-diverse individuals.

Why can’t people with learning disabilities have meaningful careers too?

Saba Salman, editor of ‘Made Possible: Stories of success by people with learning disabilities – in their own words’ tells Learning Disability Today about why meaningful employment is so important to many people with a learning disability.

“Not everyone with a learning disability wants to work in a supermarket”.

Find out more

Further insight

• A testing time for learning disability services

Catch up

• How to change up quality of life for people with learning disabilities and / or autism – read the research findings and watch our exclusive video interviews

Explore the range of Learning Disability books and training materials produced by Pavilion Publishing and Media, including Let’s Talk About Sex.

Government produces official face mask exemption card

You can show this to explain you don’t have to wear a mask in a shop or on a bus

An official card has been produced by the Government which people can show to prove they are exempt from wearing a face covering in shops.

It comes after the law changed on Friday making masks mandatory across England when shopping in supermarkets, takeaways, transport hubs, post offices, banks and indoor shopping centres, reports The Mirror.

People with conditions like breathing difficulties, anxiety disorders or autism are exempt – as are children under 11.

Care minister Helen Whately said: “We don’t want to see members of the public accosted for not wearing a face mask.”

You can download the template for the exemption card or get a PDF to show on your phone here.

Ruth and Thomas enjoy an outdoor date in Love on the Spectrum. Photograph: Courtesy of Netflix

Netflix’s latest reality effort follows the lives of people on the autism spectrum in detail, with warmth, insight and joy

At first glance, Love on the Spectrum (Netflix) appears to be an Australian version of The Undateables, without the crude name, and specific to following the dating lives of people on the autism spectrum. But if the wealth of dating shows out there have taught us anything, it is that first impressions can be misleading, and often, you don’t see the twists coming. While I continue to love The Undateables, this five-part newcomer feels more of its moment, taking the time to explore the lives of its participants in greater depth, which results in a programme filled with joy, warmth and insight.

It is frequently very funny, but crucially, that is never at the expense of anyone on camera. Looking for love can be complicated and absurd for anyone, and the programme highlights some of the pitfalls. Michael, 25, who dresses smartly, is desperate to find love, and insists that “an A+ partner looks like me”. He frequently amuses his family because of his bluntness. Over a meal with his parents and siblings, he reveals that he believes some people are “only interested in intercourse”. His father drops his food as he eats. “I think every family needs a Michael,” says his mother, happily. “It just adds something different.”

Claire Cookson, CEO of employment facilitator DFN Project SEARCH, describes how young people with learning disabilities have stepped into key worker roles during the Covid-19 Pandemic and the legacy it may leave.

The pandemic has certainly pushed us out of our comfort zones and changed the way we live our lives.

“Society has been forced to re-assess what we consider key and essential roles to be and communities have started to value and celebrate people as individuals.”

Change can be difficult, challenging and disruptive, we all recognise this.

However, the past few months has taught us that we can adapt very quickly and bring ideas and ingenuity that ultimately improve performance and the way we work.

As one of the country’s leading transition-to-work programmes for students with learning disabilities and autism, we operate 69 internationally recognised programmes across the UK, Ireland and Iberia.

When lockdown was implemented by the UK Government our interns had to work from home too. The move brought uncertainty to many interns well on their pathway to employability and our programme partners throughout the country.

Despite the disruption, we responded quickly, positively and in so many ways we have never felt more connected as a movement and organisation.

Those of you who attend our PDSGs, may remember at Luke’s last presentation he mentioned a research project that he was hoping to get ethical approval for, and that it would depend on getting enough participants from our Post-Diagnostic Support Group.

 

I remain confident that despite the current situation, because all of this is online, that Luke will be able to get sufficient participants to conduct this most essential, vital piece of research that will place autistic individuals at the heart of the study.

 

The number of people able to take part in this exciting research is limited, so please register your interest as soon as possible!

Invitation to a Discussion on ‘What it means to be Autistic’

• Are you an autistic adult?
• Would you like your voice to be heard?
• Would you like to participate in a study that will listen to your views on what it means to you to be autistic?

If so – read on!

Harriet Cameron from The University of Sheffield and Luke Beardon from Sheffield Hallam University are listening to autistic adults express and discuss their views on what it means to be autistic. You are invited to be a part of either a group (of approximately five, and no more than 10) autistic adults discussing what it means to be autistic; or, should you prefer to engage with the research without being part of a group, to have a discussion with Luke Beardon instead. If you choose the latter you will have the option of chatting with Luke on the phone, or via visual link (e.g. Skype) or via email or a messaging service. If you wish, you can be part of a focus group, and an additional interview. We will be offering a £20 voucher for each hour of your participation (up to a defined amount). There will be further opportunity after the focus group and interview to take part in analysis, and dissemination of the research.

What we hope to identify is what being autistic actually means to autistic adults. We are interested in the experiences autistic adults connect to being autistic, and in how autistic adults talk about being autistic. Once we have written the project up we hope it will help other professionals to have a better understanding of what being autistic means to the autistic community.

The project has been approved via The University of Sheffield’s School of Education ethics panel.
If you are interested in the role of co-researcher then please email one of us (email contact below).
We will then send you more detail on the project, which you should read through carefully before deciding to take part. If you did still want to take part after reading all of the information, we would ask you to sign a consent form.

Any questions, please email us. Many thanks in advance!

Our contact emails are:
H.Cameron@sheffield.ac.uk
l.beardon@shu.ac.uk

I’m an autistic, mixed race woman – let’s discuss intersectionality

Multiply marginalised due to being a mixed race, autistic woman, Mette writes for Learning Disability Today about how she experiences a world that wasn’t built for her.

Content warning: racism

Intersectionality is a term coined by law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw to explain how several identities can compound each other and create a new kind of oppression.

As a mixed race woman with autism, I have three identities that give me unique lived experience that a white man with autism would not have. I experience disadvantage on account of my gender, neurodiversity, and race. Crenshaw helps to explain this by discussing he the concept of “injustice squared” . What is meant by this is that I go through something different by having a three-part identity. For many marginalised people who have multiple difficulties, intersectionality is a really useful way to describe how different parts of you can be discriminated against at one time. I have often felt like I could only experience racism or sexism, but once I realised I could experience racism and sexism simultaneously (sometimes understood as “misogynoir”), I had a better understanding of my own marginalisation.

“Being mixed race and having autism presents vast differences from the Caucasian and neurotypical hierarchy and while I can’t control how I am perceived, I can listen, learn, and advocate for myself and others like me”.

Autism brought something new into the mix. As something I only learnt about after a challenging adolescence, I spent a lot of time looking back on injustice and inaccessible spaces that didn’t accommodate my needs or the needs of other neurodiverse people. My childhood involved years of sensory overload and unexplained meltdowns, the day-to-day triggers often being found in shared spaces like school, shops, and the dinner table.

Another busy week here at Axia this week with six diagnosticians carrying out sterling work. It was also a very sad day today as we said goodbye to Evie Connor, who is relocating back to Scotland. She will still be part of our team but we will miss seeing her lovely face and fantastic humour in the office every day.

Although the government has reduced the Social Distancing measurement from 2 metres, we will still be observing the rule of 2 metres. Red Hill House is still maintaining this distance too and signs are around the building to remind businesses and visitors about this.

This week, you may have seen our post about the National Autistic Society’s survey to help them shape their future strategy. I would encourage as many of you to complete it as possible.

Calvin has been working hard on his game reviews, which have been posted this week, as well as a review of ‘5 Ways an Ending Can Ruin a Movie’. Calvin and Ren have also been streaming as usual on Tuesday and Wednesday and will be streaming again later at 7:30pm. The game later will be ‘Final Fantasy IX’.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

This is the first of our Weekly Bulletins.

Again a very busy week with lots of diagnoses happening.

Calvin and Renwick have continued streaming Final Fantasy on Calvin’s YouTube Channel, recently started The Last of Us Remastered on Tuesday, and “Jackbox in Quarantine” on Wednesday, the latter being interactive games which are proving to be very popular.

Calvin’s also been keeping up with helping people to decide what games to buy, his review today being “Evan’s Remains”. He has also continued to write what he can around film reviews, the latest of which was “5 Reasons I Don’t Like ‘Boyhood’ But Do Like ‘Whisper of The Heart’.”

Last week was Carers Week and June saw the start of Pride month, whilst on Wednesday the BBC published an article on The lockdown challenges of a 12-year-old with autism