Outcomes
In the 12-month period from September 2023 to September 2024, we delivered 9,728 hours of mental health support to young people from Suffolk who were unable to access full-time education or employment because of their mental health. We currently have 60 beneficiaries on our programme.
Our programme has had a transformative impact on the lives of the young people we support, with:
- 75% of participants reporting reduced anxiety
- 80% engaging consistently in group activities
- 60% of participants able to complete farm-related tasks independently
- 50% of participants pursuing education or employment post-programme
We have systems in place to regularly monitor improvements to the mental health of the young people in our care, including surveys, staff observation logs, journaling, activity tracking sheets and follow-up interviews. This is essential not only to monitor our impact, but also to monitor the well-being of our participants so we can quickly respond and provide help to those in need.
We have also recently established a partnership with the University of East Anglia who will be be supporting a Clinical Psychology Doctoral student to conduct an evaluation of our mental health programme.
We are very interesting in understanding how and why our interventions work for different young people . We are currently developing research ideas with UEA to help us understand and explore what aspects of the Nest farms provision are experienced as transformative and how these mechanisms enable change in young people’s lives.