Wiltshire report on Emotional Wellbeing now published
Friday 26th January 2018
To better understand Wiltshire children and young people’s experiences of life, both inside and outside school we have commissioned a Children’s and Young People’s Health and Wellbeing Survey which was delivered for the first time in 2015 and again in 2017. The survey helps schools to identify areas for improvement and address particular issues raised by their own pupils and to provide evidence to influence future services provided by Wiltshire Council and their partners that improve the health and wellbeing of our young people. In 2017 the survey grew to 95 schools and nearly 10,000 pupils.
In 2015 the Council's public health team prepared a number of themed reports to assist with sharing the results of the survey with partners. These cover Emotional Health, Community Safety, Risky Behaviours and Healthy lifestyles. The 2017 Wiltshire Children and Young people’s Health and Wellbeing survey on emotional health can be found here.
The survey has shown that Wiltshire children and young people are generally healthy and happy. However, it has highlighted some areas for concern. On many measures of wellbeing such as life satisfaction, young people’s scores decline as they get older. There are gender differences in the results, with girls often experiencing poorer outcomes than boys. Vulnerable groups such as young carers, children with special educational needs and disabilities, LGBT, and children with a social worker have poorer outcomes on many questions. Some other highlights from the report include the following:
• The majority of children and young people across Wiltshire have good or excellent mental health, ranging from 90% in the primary school to 68% in the year 12/FE sample. However, by year 12/FE nearly a third of the sample reported poor mental health and 13% (just over 1 in 10) indicated that they had extremely poor mental health.
• Overall, 72% of children and young people were satisfied with their life. Whilst it is positive that the majority of Wiltshire children and young people are satisfied, the data also highlights inequalities. For example, satisfaction reduced to 57% for the year 12/FE girls and 39% of LGBT children in secondary school.
• 76% of primary school respondents felt confident about their future, but this falls to 49% of the year 12/FE respondents.
• 71% of the primary school respondents are getting 10 or more hours sleep and 77% of secondary school respondents are getting 8 or more hours sleep.
• Around 23% of children reported being so worried they could not sleep quite often or most nights. A higher percentage of girls than boys reported being frequently worried at night.
• 15% of primary school respondents, 13% of secondary school respondents and 7% of year 12/FE respondents reported being bullied in the last year. Many of the vulnerable groups across the school settings had higher percentages of those being bullied.
• 57% of secondary school respondents and 56% of year 12/FE respondents reported being stressed by school work. This increased to 64% and 71% in the female secondary and year 12/FE respondents.
• 34% of secondary school respondents and 30% of year 12/FE respondents that they would like to know more about stress management.
• 10% of the secondary respondents and 12% of the year 12/FE sample reported that they self-harmed monthly or more frequently. A larger percentage of females’ self-harm monthly or more frequently in both school phases. Further, a larger proportion of nearly all the identified vulnerable groups reported that they have self-harmed more often than the Wiltshire average.
• 1 in 4 respondents did not tell anyone about their self-harm.
