‘Checking in: Voices of young people during lockdown’ began with a simple premise – how are young people coping with COVID-19?. It developed into an in-depth online listening project run by Partnership for Young London and Good Thinking, with the support of TikTok.
The guiding principles were that the project should be youth-focused, safe, collaborative, asset-based and responsive and that it should help to boost participants’ mental wellbeing.
Every fortnight between 26 March and 6 July, a group of 14 to 24-year-olds completed an online questionnaire. The majority of respondents are part of the Digital Health Ambassadors programme set up by Healthy London Partnership, Good Thinking and Partnership for Young London in 2019.
As London-based organisations and with nearly all the survey respondents living in London, Partnership for Young London were able to get a snapshot of young Londoners’ experiences of the COVID-19 lockdown. The majority of the survey participants are from BAME groups and the cohort also included young people with disabilities and young care leavers. In surveys 5-8, female respondents made up the majority of the group.
The findings of ‘Checking in: Voices of young people during lockdown’ project have even greater resonance as we move into the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and it is recommended that they are used to help shape mental health support in the UK.
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