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 and media
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.
Our guide for CAMHS practitioners shares learnings from Phase I of the Wellbeing While Waiting study and has been produced to support staff throughout the NHS in developing and scaling social prescribing services in the future. We launched this publication at a webinar – you can learn more and watch the recording here.
Subsequently, in 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. You can watch the webinar “Youth Social Prescribing in Action” or take a look at presentation slides here.
Watch our short video below to learn more about this research and hear about the impact we’ve had so far from young people and their parents.
In November 2025 we held a webinar with the National Academy for Social Prescribing, presenting quantitative and qualitative results from Wellbeing While Waiting. During the event, the research team shared that Wellbeing While Waiting is the first robust trial to demonstrate social prescribing can positively impact mental health difficulties for young people. Additional novel findings are an increase in resilience for young people. This suggests that social prescribing could be an effective tool in helping support youth mental health in specialist setting whilst they wait for treatment. You can watch the full event recording here.
We’ll be sharing more updates on Wellbeing While Waiting research over the coming months – subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop.