Abstract
The rising prevalence of mental health difficulties in young people, along with increased demands on mental health services, highlights an urgent need for developing effective preventative interventions. Whole-school approaches offer timely and accessible support; however, existing interventions show mixed efficacy, with many excluding the involvement of key stakeholders, especially young people with lived experience. This paper reports the development of a co-produced, whole-school intervention, ‘Resilience Rucksacks’, which aimed to equip young people with knowledge and practical skills to promote general resilience during a pivotal transition period from primary to secondary school. Project development comprised three phases: (i) a literature review to identify key factors that support youth mental health and resilience, (ii) stakeholder consultation via 7 steering group meetings with young people, school staff, and parents (n = 6-20 representatives per session) and a follow-up online survey (n = 197), and (iii) 20 co-production workshops with young people (n = 2-9 attendees per workshop) to develop evidence-based well-being tools. This process identified four biopsychosocial factors (sleep, physical activity, self-compassion, and social relationships) to be focused on due to their strong research evidence base and resonance with everyday experiences. The subsequent co-production workshops produced 7 main well-being tools designed to increase young people’s knowledge, skills, and confidence around mental health. This study critically highlights the value of co-production with young people to identify intervention targets and to design effective and accessible tools that support resilience and well-being development in their own environment.