Caring about Care: Coproducing intersectional understandings of how caregiving relationships impact the mental health of care-experienced young people

I am proposing an ambitious, coproduced research project to understand how caregiving relationships can be harnessed to address the mental health crisis faced by care-experienced young people (CEYP). We know CEYP are at greater risk of poor mental health, including psychological distress, psychiatric diagnoses (e.g., depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder), and suicide, and are less likely to access formal mental health services. Harnessing existing caregiving relationships (e.g. with foster carers) to improve CEYP mental health is a government priority and acknowledged as a promising intervention area. This fellowship addresses the limited evidence- base to meeting this priority, developing evidence needed to refine theoretical understanding, informing policy and practice while amplifying CEYP’s traditionally marginalised voices. Specifically, my research aims to identify active ingredients and describe mechanisms by which caregiving relationships promote CEYP mental health using an intersectional approach through four linked studies co-produced with CEYP, caregivers and professionals. WP1 explores intersectional narratives of how caregiving relationships impact CEYP mental health; WP2 and WP3 investigate identified active ingredients in these relationships and how they link to CEYP mental health longitudinally using quantitative and ethnographic approaches respectively; WP4 synthesises findings through co-producing logic models for how identified active ingredients in caregiving relationships impact CEYP.