NEW PAPER from me and colleagues, reviewing negative effects found to date in universal school mental health interventions and considering what should happen next www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... brief thread below

Interesting findings from the MYRIAD mindfulness school trial with large number of young people followed up from pre-intervention to 12m. 69%-80% had few emotional well-being problems across times, 11%-23% stable high-problem trajectories, 2%-16% worsening problems & 1%-5% decreasing problems.

Really important research about a school mental health intervention. Studies without significant findings often have a hard time getting published, but its just as important to know what interventions don't seem to have a significant benefit as knowing what interventions do.

Read this thread if you are unsure what DLD (Developmental Language Disorder) is #DevLangDis

New paper from my group, led by Carolina Guzman Holst This is a secondary analysis of data from the high-quality MYRIAD trial, a universal school-based mindfulness intervention Summary below (🧵) acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

New from us: Understanding the countermovement to online presentations of psychiatric disorder that are perceived as "faked" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... A huge online movement tries to identify people they feel are 'faking' mental illness for reasons of self-promotion.

Forthcoming in CPS (@psychscience.bsky.social): Are mental illness identities helpful? Harmful? Can thinking you have a mental illness become a “self-fulfilling prophecy”... and how would this happen? doi.org/10.1177/2167... 🧵⬇️

My book Coming Of Age: How Adolescence Shapes Us is out in paperback now www.penguin.co.uk/books/451093...

I had no idea about this list so this was such a nice surprise when a pal spotted this and sent it to me yesterday 🥹 — Coming Of Age is one of the Guardian’s best paperbacks out this month www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

I've had some really helpful messages on Instagram about this - resharing here in case it can reach more people

How do autistic young people experience universal mental health interventions at school? Please read/share this 🙏 A mum recently got in touch with me to share a story about her autistic daughter’s experience of mental health lessons in school (🧵)

Help! Can someone familiar with the methodology used below (in the APMS) please help me understand something? These stats are shocking and I'm keen to understand what counts as having a common MH condition (query cont below) www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

I may have missed the poster timings but if you’re at #ESCAP2025, go chat to Nina about self-diagnosis!

I am once again pitching my romantic comedy: - two academics start dating - discover they are each other's terrible reviewer - hijinks ensue Working title: Love is Double-Blind

This is a dream come true, a once in a lifetime honour. I am so utterly thrilled to have won the 2025 @womensprize.bsky.social for Non-Fiction. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who gave me such generous support in writing The Story of a Heart, especially Max & Keira’s incredible, wonderful families 🩷🫁🫀

This was a conversation I'd been so excited for, and it didn't disappoint! It was such a pleasure having Dr. @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social on Behind the Stigma Podcast last week to talk all things Adolescent Mental Health. Listen here: www.buzzsprout.com/1402324/epis...

This is really important: if you want to disseminate information beyond academia, you really need to be creating very short, very engaging posts – ideally videos – for Instagram and TikTok. I have spend the last 4 months figuring out how to do this, and... (cont)

Can anyone help: What are some good papers/resources about adolescent development in the context of neurodivergence and autism? Like puberty, transition to secondary school, increased interest in peers, increased independence but in context of neurodivergence - what has been written about this?

Can anyone help: What are some good papers/resources about adolescent development in the context of neurodivergence and autism? Like puberty, transition to secondary school, increased interest in peers, increased independence but in context of neurodivergence - what has been written about this?

Brilliant thread and replies here about how difficult it is to get messages across that contradict people's own views/biases. This resonates with my own experiences with practitioners and policy makers as well as general public. Referenced Guardian article here www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Very grateful that someone has coherently summed this up in a 2 min video! Recommended ⬇️

I’m looking for a small number of secondary schools to help us with a research study exploring self-diagnosis of mental health problems in young people For more info or to express interest, please email @nhigsonsweeney.bsky.social: nina.higson-sweeney [at] psych.ox.ac.uk Or DM us! Thank you 🙏🏼

great postdoc opportunity in a lovely place with people doing v important and thoughtful work on health, mental health and employment

Bad pain day means I get to read this, rather than wash the kitchen floor. Thanks, @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social

This is a great scheme for mental health ECRs! Details/apply below

For those interested in universal MH interventions in schools, there’s a new meta analysis out today by Hayes et al and I wanted to highlight a few points 🧵 www.frontiersin.org/journals/chi...

Interesting piece about the importance of stopping doing things that don't work. It does resonate, as at times in my career managers have persisted in telling me to do things that are time-consuming and unproductive, but seem sensible to them. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Do ADHD awareness materials increase self-diagnosis of ADHD? This is a really important new study (still preprint) indicating that these materials increase liklihood of self-diagnosis but *don't* increase symptom reporting, suggesting the materials change not symptoms but the framing of them /1

Really happy to receive my first paperback copy of Coming Of Age 🎉 I wrote this book to examine the emotional power of the adolescent years – I explore why adolescents behave the way they do, but also about why events from those years continue to affect who we are, even many years later 1/

again all of this stuff is resignation-level for literally everyone involved www.notus.org/health-scien...

Very interesting from Estonia: no phone bans in schools, just rules about when and how to use them. Instead of total bans, they are pragmatic about the role of tech in young people's current and future lives would be good to see research on what young people think of this! tinyurl.com/mryz498x

This is such a great idea! Go and stay in a nice house (all funded) and write for 2.5 days with other ECRs Deadline next Wed

I’ve had lots of messages about my Guardian article, in which I argued we should stop universal mental health lessons in schools. The messages have fallen into three categories, and I’m reflecting on this here because I think it exposes something interesting in the field (and research in general) 🧵

🗞️ Today we've been speaking about new #MentalHealth crisis centres 👇 While it's clear that people in a mental health crisis need more timely & effective support, it's not so easy to separate out mental & physical health needs - often people in a mental health crisis also need urgent physical care.

this is such a nice idea at a conference! Headshots are expensive and often not offered by universities (I've only worked in one dept that did this) so this is great

☺️

This should be a very interesting and timely discussion.

On Mon 2 June 11.00-12.00 (UK time) I will be taking part in this online discussion about the future of universal school mental health interventions It's free and open to all, and there are lots of experts with varied viewpoints so should be good - sign up info below www.acamh.org/event/debate...

Some young people say they do not like focusing on their body in mindfuless exercises (see comment below re neurodivergent children) - we should listen to them

"I listen as she explains it all to me, but in my head I’m thinking something else: she shouldn’t be learning mindfulness at school." Excellent analysis by @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I've just realised I used the phrase 'them lessons' in here, which is of course a typo and also very upsetting 😭

This applies to every successful (whatever that means) academic I know - they work v hard but luck is always involved. It applies to me too - there have been times in my career when I've been unlucky, and other times when various things have just aligned well and given me great opportunities

This is a brilliant article about universal mental health lessons or training in schools, and why despite it sounding like a no-brainer, the evidence really doesn't support its efficacy. I was planning to write a blog about this once I've submitted the grant I'm working on: read this instead.

I’m in the Guardian today, arguing that we should stop them all-class mental health lessons in schools I've thought very carefully about ‘going public’ with this, because it's a sensitive argument to make, especially in the face of so many young people struggling. (cont 🧵) tinyurl.com/vun92cz7

This is a thought provoking article by @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social‬. "Another problem is that the classroom may not be the right setting to learn about mental health.” This pens what is a key paragraph for me. This is well worth taking the time to read.

"The numbers tell us these lessons don’t improve mental health. The qualitative data tells us that many young people don’t like or want them. We need to listen." @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Based in London? We’re recruiting participants for the Em-Body study! Sign up here 🧠 shorturl.at/54tQ8

Highly recommend this talk on autism from Francesca Happé tomorrow - online and in Oxford, free to attend, aimed at general audiences www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/events/chang...

Thanks Julia! I like how you say ‘let’ like it’ll be such a treat for the students. They may feel differently 😁

I RAGED at this on the radio yesterday, and will repeat my mantra: you cannot (MUST NOT) ask people to develop 'resilience' or 'grit' against those things that are in your power to change. 'Develop resilience' so often means 'your disability is inconveniencing me, please be less disabled' 🧵