University of Exeter

Academic Institute

No

DARS-NIC-402080-N3V5Z-v1.3

The objective for processing is for the research team from the University of Exeter and University of Cambridge to contact participants from the Mental Health of Children and Young People in England (MHCYP) 2020 follow-up survey (also known as the National Study of Health and Wellbeing: Children and Young People 2020) to invite them to take part in a follow-up research interview study. This follow-up research study forms part of a wider project called: 'Tracking the impact of Covid-19 on the mental health of children, young people and families; follow up of a national longitudinal probability sample'. The follow-up interviews are referred to as the RESHAPE study (REflecting on the impactS of covid-19 on cHildren And young People in England: exploring experiences of lockdown, service access and education) as this is more accessible for participants. Participants include 600-1000 parents of children and young people themselves aged 5-22 who previously consented to be contacted for further research in the survey. The main aims of RESHAPE are: • To explore the experiences of children, young people and parents of lockdown during the pandemic and the impact of school closures on children, young people and their families (led by the University of Cambridge) • To examine mental health related service contacts in children and young people, both pre-pandemic and during the pandemic, and to explore the barriers and facilitators to seeking and receiving help (led by the University of Exeter) The processing involves the names and contact details of participants in the MHCYP 2020 who are eligible to take part in these interviews being securely passed by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) to the Universities of Cambridge and Exeter. The purpose is for the University teams to contact these participants to invite them to take part in the research interviews. The University teams will then take separate informed consent for participation in the follow-on research study interviews. These research interviews form part of a project funded by the Medical Research Council through the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) 2020 Covid-19 research call. The findings of the interviews will be shared in reports for policymakers such as the Department for Health and Social Care, the Department for Education, NHS England, Public Health England and Office of the Children’s Commissioner, Royal College of Psychiatrists and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and in publications for peer review. Better information about the impact of Covid-19 on children and young people’s mental health, and how the lockdown affected them is crucial to mitigate the effects, and to improve services and support for children and young people if there are further waves of Covid-19 or lockdowns in the future. Conducting patient and public involvement activities throughout this research will ensure the project is relevant and accessible, and that outcomes are accessible to schools and services. There are considerable benefits to collecting further data from the participants in MHCYP 2020, as this is the only well-characterised national probability sample of this age group carried out during Covid-19, rather than being a convenience sample. The data controllers for this application will be the University of Cambridge and the University of Exeter. The data processors will be NatCen, the University of Cambridge and the University of Exeter. The GDPR lawful basis for the University of Exeter and the University of Cambridge to process this data is Article 6(1)(e) ‘processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller’. The legal basis for the processing of special category data is GDPR Article 9 (2)(j), for research or statistical purposes. The funder is the Medical Research Council (MRC). NatCen are a partner in this project, and act as data processors for the MHCYP 2020 survey for NHS Digital. All participants in MHCYP 2020 were asked for consent to be contacted about further research and surveys. Only those who agreed to contact about future research will be contacted initially by NatCen with information (a brief flyer) about taking part in RESHAPE. The flyer will explain that unless the person opts-out, their contact details (name, phone number, address and email address) will be securely passed to the research team to allow the researchers to contact them with more information about the follow-on research. They will then be able to give separate informed consent about whether to participate in the interview study. People will have the choice to opt-out of having their contact details passed to the research team, by using a Freephone NatCen number. It is necessary for the University teams to have contact details in order to directly contact participants to complete recruitment and take consent for the interviews. Good research practice suggests that those carrying out the research should take consent so that it is fully informed. It also replicates the method previously used in the follow-ups of the 1999 survey, which were acceptable across over 800 interviews. Participants in MHCYP 2020 have already given consent to being contacted about further related research; hence, requiring that they opt-in consent to contact again on this occasion (within 1 year of the survey) represents an additional and unnecessary burden to them, which may result in a low response rate. The latter would jeopardise the main strength of the sample (i.e. its’ representative nature). The study team have full ethical approval from the University of Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee for this procedure.

This research has been funded in a competitive application to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)/ Medical Research Council (MRC) as part of the 2020 Covid-19 research call, which demonstrates its value. Project partners on the application included the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, Public Health England, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the Department for Education. Their contributions have ensured that this research is designed to benefit those providing services and support to children, young people, and families. Involvement of these stakeholder groups in the project’s design is important as it will improve accessibility and relevance of the outcome reports. Through this research, the Universities of Cambridge and Exeter will aim to: • Understand experiences of mental health help-seeking during the pandemic, and the barriers and facilitators to receiving help • Explore the impact of Lockdown, particularly of school closures on children, young people, and families, including on their mental health and their engagement with education, as well as describing education practices which were helpful and unhelpful during this period, focussing on mental health support and impacts. Provision of the contact details of consenting individuals from the populations of interest is vital in enabling the direct collection of further data to achieve these aims. A better understanding of the impact of lockdown on children’s mental health, education and access to services should directly benefit the provision of mental health care for children and young people. As above, reports will be produced on access to services. These will include an exploration of the barriers and facilitators to seeking help for mental health concerns during the pandemic, as well as a description of the services that children, young people and parents used most frequently and their experiences of service contact (e.g. face to face and/or virtual). These reports will provide a framework for those planning and running services across health, education and social care to address these factors and improve access to care for the most vulnerable. It is hoped that this will contribute to more accessible and acceptable services being offered should there be further waves of Covid-19, or should we be preparing for a future pandemic. Similarly, brief reports will be produced on educational experiences and engagement and their impact on mental health and wellbeing. These will be directly relevant to education policy-makers and schools wishing to plan for and mitigate the impact of any future closures. The published report to UKRI is beneficial to funders by detailing methods, project delivery and outcomes during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is hoped that subsequent peer-reviewed publications will allow other researchers to learn from this research and build upon it, to design further research to benefit children and young people. Summaries of the study's findings will be prepared for separate stakeholders, focussed on practitioners and service planners in a variety of accessible formats such as presentations, blogs, podcasts and evidence- briefings. The impact of the reports, papers, and stakeholder engagement will be monitored through altmetrics, website hits and downloads, as well as noting contributions to policy meetings, committees and citation in policy documents. These benefits, in terms of impact on service planning, are expected to begin to be achieved during the first 12 months of this UKRI grant and to continue for the 12-24 months afterwards. The Universities of Cambridge and Exeter are also conscious of the high public interest, and will work with young people and parents to co-develop accessible public content, again in the form of blogs and engagement with the media.

27/09/2021

De-Personalised

Health and Social Care Act 2012 – s261(1) and s261(2)(b)(ii)

Consent (Reasonable Expectation)

One-Off

TRE