MiHub final research project report published
Monday 24th January 2022
MiHUB is an innovative technology-based project that aims to support young people’s wellbeing and resilience. It is part of the Future Challenges Programme.
The West of England Academic Health Science Network, ProReal, Wiltshire Council and the B&NeS, Swindon and Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group worked together and used virtual reality technology to supplement current mental health approaches.
The MiHUB partnership project aims to help young people set out visual representations of everyday situations, and in doing it can help them to express complex thoughts and feelings and help build resilience for later in life.
The project took place from 2019-2022,with a trial at Royal Wootton Bassett Academy and the final report has now been published.
Key learnings:
- MiHUB was deemed acceptable and worthwhile by students and staff, which is considered a strength, given school-based interventions can be found to have good outcomes but with low user-acceptability.
- Students were engaged with the resource, were interested in making comments about it and most felt that it would be useful for either themselves or others.
- The school also felt positive about the resource; they believed it complemented existing teaching and support, and asked to have extended access, beyond the trial period.
- The project did not cause any known harm during implementation, which some anticipated may occur with unsupervised access at home.
- While use of MiHUB (as an optional resource to be used independently) cannot be shown to improve mental wellbeing or resilience from our evaluation, it may provide an additional resource to engage young people in conversations and reflections about their mental health and related issues.
- Potential staff concerns about safeguarding should be addressed early in implementation (students highlighted confidentiality as a benefit), with appropriate training to address any underpinning staff assumptions that an intervention may not work, as these will undoubtably affect implementation success.
