8ii11 study ReducingSAD

8ii11 Study

By the age of 8 most children will have entered a stage of biological and psychological development called adrenarche. A precursor to puberty, it brings hormonal changes that not only start the process of physical maturation but can also influence moods and feelings.

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It is our belief, based on clinical experience, that teaching children how to understand and skilfully manage their emotions will both lead to better emotional wellbeing during childhood and better equip them to cope with adolescence.

The teenage years are an emotionally vulnerable stage of life. Evidence suggests that the time to start equipping young people with skills to manage their mental health is in early childhood because half of all lifetime mental illness diagnoses begin by the age of 14 years. Research indicates that just under 30% of us will have a mental health disorder at some time in our lives.

Our 8ii11 study intends to identify ways in which we can help 8-11 year olds understand their emotional wellbeing now and as they enter adolescence. It will investigate the usefulness of educating and training children during adrenarche in an emotional and endocrine monitoring programme.

It is a long-term study with two key objectives:

1)
To assess whether a preventative programme that equips 8-11 year olds with the knowledge, skills and habits to look after their mental health correlates with less incidence of SAD and better emotional wellbeing during this time.

2)
To monitor the children as they grow up and evaluate whether having undertaken such a programme in childhood provides a protective factor to their emotional wellbeing as they enter the more vulnerable teenage years.

The intention of our 8ii11 study is to help us to create and develop a preventative programme – one of our Milestones programmes – which will be called I Can Change My Mind.