Young people referred for NHS mental health support face long waiting lists, and up to three quarters will experience deterioration in their mental health while waiting. Social prescribing could therefore help young people in this situation, by connecting them to non-medical forms of community support such as skills development, peer support, befriending and social or cultural activities.
However, statistics indicate that many children and young people are not currently engaging in social prescribing; the logistics of getting young people referred into it are complex, and the evidence base for its effectiveness in this population is still in its infancy.
Therefore, this partnership project will develop and thoroughly evaluate a new social prescribing care pathway for young people aged 11-18 who are on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting lists.
Working with 10 NHS sites across England, our three-year goal is to have a fully developed and tested model that can be scaled nationally to help many more young people. To achieve this, the project has three phases:
- Phase 1 (2022-23): co-designing the CAMHS social prescribing pathway, selecting sites for testing, and developing the protocols, resources and training needed to recruit young people into the service.
- Phase 2 (2023-24): running a controlled trial to evaluate the impact of the pathway and activities on young people taking part and CAMHS services, also assessing its acceptability, suitability, feasibility, uptake, delivery, and cost.
- Phase 3 (2024-25): assessing how the service can be expanded to cover more CAMHS sites, developing an implementation model, and sharing findings with policymakers, health practitioners and researchers.
Publications
Fancourt, D., Burton, A., Bu, F., Deighton, J., Turner, R., Wright, J., … & Hayes, D. (2023). Wellbeing while waiting evaluating social prescribing in CAMHS: study protocol for a hybrid type II implementation-effectiveness study. BMC psychiatry. [DOI]
Bradbury A, Hayes D, Burton A, Fancourt D, Wright J, Sticpewich L, Page J, Jarvis L, Empsom L, Marshall R. (2024) Social Prescribing in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services: A Guide for CAMHS Practitioners. University College London.
Hayes, D., Marshall, R., Wright, J., Burton, A., Bu, F., Sticpewich, L., Stuttard, H., Page, J., Bradbury, A., Han, E., Deighton, J., Tibber, M., Talwar, S., Fancourt, D., (2025) Wellbeing While Waiting (‘INSPYRE’) Evidence Summary. University College London.
Media and resources
We have partnered with the National Academy for Social Prescribing to host three webinars throughout the study. You can find details and links to recordings below:
- Social prescribing and Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (April 2024). We shared learning from Phase I of the Wellbeing While Waiting study and launched our manual to support CAMHS staff in developing and scaling social prescribing services in the future.
- Youth Social Prescribing in Action (November 2024). Our team shared an update on the project alongside practical learning from delivering youth social prescribing. This included a presentation and Q&A with the researchers and social prescribers involved in the study.
- Research showcase: How can social prescribing help young people waiting for mental health support? (November 2025). We presented quantitative and qualitative results from Wellbeing While Waiting.
You can also watch our short video below to learn more about this research and hear about the impact we’ve had from young people and their parents.
We’ll be sharing more updates on Wellbeing While Waiting research over the coming months – subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop.