Abstract
Background: Young people have increasingly engaged in climate actions. However, engaging with such a complex problem has impacted young people’s mental health (Hickman et al., 2021), resulting in increased worry and hopelessness (Ojala, 2012). Some protective factors are known (Petrasek MacDonald et al., 2015), yet more research is needed on youth-informed resilience factors to ensure their wellbeing and ability to undertake climate actions is supported. Furthermore, most studies fail to consider the sociodemographic background of young people and present them as a homogenous generation, overlooking factors of privilege or adversities, which impact their experiences of climate change.Research Questions and Aims: 1) How might climate change affect the mental health of Young People facing Multiple Systemic Disadvantages (YPfMSD)? and the co-produced RQ 2) How can YPfMSD co-produce outputs that aim to increase resilience impacted by climate change? This research involved Young People facing Multiple Systemic Disadvantages in Blackpool in Northern England, ranked the most deprived area in England in 2019 (Blackpool unitary - Lancashire County Council, 2019). This research aimed to: actively engage YPfMSD in discussions about climate change; to find out what impact it might have on their mental health; to learn about their vision for the future of their community; and to work on co-creating transformative actions for climate resilience.
Methodology and Methods: This thesis followed a qualitative research methodology focused on more-than-participatory research, guided by the Transformative Paradigm (Mertens, 2009), Participatory Action Research (Cahill, 2007), and Co-Production (Slay and Stephens, 2013). YPfMSD (N=10) (aged 12-19) took part in a semi-structured interview (n = 9) and/or joined as co-researchers (n = 3). Co-production workshops (n=25) took place with the three young co-researchers, supported by the doctoral researcher and a co-production worker from the research partner organisation BoingBoing CiC.
Contributions to knowledge: This research contributed to resilience theory and practice by demonstrating how climate change is an adversity faced by YPfMSD and offers an adaption of the Resilience Framework (Hart, Blincow and Thomas, 2007), which contributes to socio- environmental resilience literature. It added to mental health literature by uncovering what YPfMSD felt about climate change and what coping skills they used. It contributed to climate change literature more broadly by demonstrating the co-benefits of a collaborative research approach with young people concerned about climate change. The findings offered practical implications for practitioners and community organisations as well as local policy makers in the form of two research outputs (Erlacher-Downing et al., 2022; Tarpey et al., 2022).
| Date of Award | Sept 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Julie Doyle (Supervisor) & Barbara Mezes (Supervisor) |