license
Where the stuff on this blog is something i created it is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License so there are no requirements to attribute - but if you want to mention me as the source that would be nice :¬)
Sunday, 14 December 2025
Saturday, 17 August 2024
Under-16s receving a Disability Allowance in England & Wales has doubled in the last decade - whats going on?
1) The number of under-16s in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) has doubled over 10 years. In 2023 it is now at some 682k in England and Wales.
2) The cause of this increase is almost entirely due to awards made for those whose main condition is either a learning difficulty (caseload up up 117%), behavioural disorder (caseload up 562%) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (caseload up 71%)
3) There is a sharp drop-off in receipt as young people transition to adult disability benefits, a time in their lives where, on the cusp of adulthood, a smoother transition would clearly be ideal. Iin 2023 8% of all 15 yr olds received DLA but this fell back by a quarter to 6% of all 17 yr olds receiving Personal Independence Payment - PIP). Having said that 86% of of those receiving the DLA benefit are succcessful in applying for the equvalent adult benefit PIP. .
4) The increases above mirror the trends in the number of disabled children in Great Britain overall. Over the past decade, their number has increased by more than half a million to 1.2 million in 2022-23, with more than four-fifths of this increase being children with a social or behavioural impairment.
(Note that some stats I googled suggested whilst the UK population increased by some 7% 2013-2023, the populaiton under 16 reduced -- which would make the numbers above, proportionate to the population, even worse)
5) Mental health issues may, or may not have a bearing on those with learning difficulties or behavioural disorders or ADHD.
6) In the decade before 2020 there has been a rise in mental health problems for 18-24 yr olds. The share of that age bracket with probable Common Mental Disorder (CMD), such as depression, anxiety, or a bipolar condition has risen from 24% to 34%. 41% of young women are likely to experience CMDs whereas 26% of young men of the same age are.
7) So what might be causing these increases in CMD? The February 2024 Report (Source 2) rules out shifts towards higher education. It highlights that research has identified a number of possible explanations for the recent rise in mental health for young people.
a) Covid-19 led to a sharp rise in mental health problems. This was particularly the case for young people compared to older age groups. And CMD rates among young people have remained elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels. But trends of rising mental health problems for 18-24-year-olds predate the Covid-19 pandemic.
b) Rapid rise in social media – with the advent of problems like online bullying and those associated with excessive use.
c) Young people under increasing pressure to perform - in stressful circumstances like exams and tight deadlines during their studies and at work.
d) Austerity & cuts to vital services like health support for children and adolescents - have led to more young people growing up in poverty, or reduced the support available to young people with poor mental health. There is a large body of literature on how economic hardship can increase the risk of mental health problems (e.g. delaying financial independence and therefore a sense of control over their life).
e) Wider (very welcome) societal awareness and acceptance of mental health problems - so more comfort, and less stigma attached in reporting mental health symptoms today than in the past. (This posts author points out that not all negative feelings are mental health issues just because the person struggling with the negative feelings has self-diagnosed them as a mental health issue).
Photo credit: By @priscilladupreezbu found via unsplash.com
Sources
1) Resolution Foundation 17th August 2024 Spotlight update - Growing pressures - Exploring trends in children’s disability benefits;
2) Resolution Foundation 26th February 2024 Report - We’ve only just begun - Action to improve young people’s mental health, education and employment;
Tuesday, 21 April 2020
1min 47sec @wef clip - The #coronavirus outbreak is putting people’s #mental health at risk too
text from youtube "The coronavirus pandemic is putting people's mental health at risk. Here's 4 ways experts advise us to help stay healthy during the pandemic. "
Monday, 10 February 2020
11min 14sec #DUST clip - Regulation
text from youtube "Starring Sunita Mani from Netflix's hit series "GLOW" and USA's "Mr. Robot" - watch the award winning sci-fi short film now.
"Regulation" by Ryan Patch
Every child has the right to be happy. By law.."
Friday, 4 October 2019
6min 24sec @wef clip Prince William on mental health: 'I started feeling things I'd never felt before'-
text from youtube "While the "stiff upper lip" - the idea that you should suppress your emotions - may be as British as fish and chips, younger members of the Royal family are taking a different approach. The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, spoke at Davos earlier this year to address the stigma surrounding mental health."
Tuesday, 26 March 2019
Wednesday, 13 February 2019
7min @RSAEvents clip - Mental Health in Schools
Monday, 21 January 2019
6min 32sec #LSE clip - Promoting #Healthy Minds in #Schools
Text from youtube "Healthy Minds is a unique curriculum that redefines personal, social and health education in secondary schools. It aims to develop emotional resilience and self-efficacy in students. The London School of Economic and the charity Bounce Forward have collaborated to pilot the curriculum in 32 Secondary schools. This short film looks at the results."
Monday, 19 November 2018
7min @RSAEvents clip - Mental Health in #Schools
Text from youtube "Child and adolescent mental health is in the headlines almost daily. How can we support young people’s wellbeing and build mentally healthy school communities? Our expert panel share their insights and perspectives.
Watch Dr Polly Casey, Research Fellow, UCL; Simon Blake, CEO, Mental Health First Aid England; Dr Marc Bush, Director of Evidence and Policy, YoungMinds; Ross Trafford, Principal, Holyhead School in our latest RSA Spotlight - the edits which take you straight to the heart of the event!
Thursday, 11 May 2017
#Data - The world's most valuable resource AND @KingsCollegeLon 's The #Digital Everyday - exploration or alienation
In a serendipitous week the Economist magazine's leader and briefing was on digital data with a cover headline of "The world's most valuable resource".
In their leader the Economist describe data as the oil of the digital era. They point out that with Alphabet (Google's parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft's dominance those companies use their vast pools of data to protect their dominant market positions. In part the data they have means they can ID potential competitors quickly which they then acquire via "shoot-out acquisitions", (think Facebook and What's App) before they become a threat.
The article goes on to describe how the enormous amount of data collected - on what we buy (Amazon), what we share & like (Facebook), what we search for (Google), how we drive (Tesla), where we take taxis to (Uber) - allows these tech companies to identify and develop new services (or improve existing ones) in ways users want - so serving needs and attracting new users. And because their competitors can't see the data they don't even know about some of the opportunities.
Given such analysis the Economist suggests antitrust authorities need to loosen the big companies grip on the data and open up Government's data to encourage competition (both with user's consent). Towards the end of the article the Economist covers the the tension between data portability and privacy and how people need help in understanding that their data has value and they are due some form of compensation when others use it.
And slightly unusually for a tech/soc media conference it didn't have a #
The main themes I heard during the various sessions I attended are set out below.
The full programme for the day is to the left of this text and the text below.
The twitter (or other) IDs I could find for the people who talked at the sessions I attended are -
@jwajcman1 @paologerbaudo @girlslike_us @Caliviral @ianmtucker1 @tainab @RachaelCKent @mjgw
@ideacritik
@jrpybus
@TupsTweets @susannapaasonen samuel forsythe tanya kent pinelopi troullinou
and the institutions that organised the conference @kingsdh @DigiCultureKCL
Is our experience of time shaped by digital technology?
In the Opening keynote Judy Wajcman talked about how we describe and perceive the effect of technology on time so for example:
- Accelerating the pace at which things happen
- Changing our very perception of time (as did the second hand on clocks when first introduced)
- Reality check - earlier technologies were also “blamed” for speeding up & too much data
- Not all of us are affected in the same way (e.g. taxi drivers wait to speed others to places)
- Time as an individual resource or as a collective accomplishment
- Information overload (e.g. email inbox) – equally due to collective norms on how we expect others to deal with emails
- Concept of time as a limited resource and so of value & so to be used productively.
So the idea of the digital affecting our experience and/or perception of time is something several have looked at ....
Our approach to digital technology
Judy's opening keynote, and Zeena Feldman's response touched on this issue. Some of the issues mentioned that struck me are headlined below.
- Need to be more discriminating about when we use digital tecnology and be more demanding of it when we do
- Are we helpless victims or willing consumers?
- Should we be questioning more closely those who provide the devices and services in terms of their their bias and motivations?
- Is the technology a help in using “our” time productively by multi-tasking or is the practice of multi-tasking inherently less productive?
- In one of the slots in the 1st session after lunch Alessandro Caliandro talked about some research which tracked students use of smartphones and how they were always dipping in and out of using them - sometimes to kill time and sometimes to avoid stressful situations.
When asked about misuse of smartphones some cited others hogging a digital environment with too much intellectual context. When questioned about themselves people - of course - thought they got the balance of using smartphones for serious/silly/funny/heavy/light topics just right.
What do we actually want?
- In her response to the opening keynote Zeena Feldman pointed out that we are still figuring out how to live with these pocket computers.
- Its almost as though we're adolescents again - experimenting and trying things out as we begin to figure out who we are.
- All of which begs the question of what sort of life we want and how can digital technology help us achieve that. Is the productive use of a time the morality that underpins the choices we want to make?
How nuanced is the information we receive that we consider to be factual (eg the filter bubble that means my google search on a word will bring up different results from your search on the same word). Is happiness what we pursue? Are we human beings or human doings?
How much we share digitally and why
Self tracking devices - Rachel Kent talked about her research on self tracking devices/apps and people's use of them. Some of the use appeared to be motivated by a form of self policing where people used the app and the community to motivate themselves towards better exercise/eating/whatever regimes.
Indeed the very use of such apps made people feel more healthy even if they were having a "lazy" day or the device had over reported their activity levels. Equally when the app produced results that under reported activity there was genuine angst.
Digital Mental Health - Ian Tucker talked about the use of apps to help those with mental health issues and in particular an online supportive community app called Elefriends.
He described from his research
- the initial disruption participants faced when 1st using the community,
- the quite profound level of sharing that occurred,
- the concern if regular participants dipped out or deleted their accounts,
- and the relief some participants felt in dipping out of using the site
Filling the Void - Social Media as depressive hedonia - Marcus Gilroy-Ware riffed on his reflections on our use of sites like facebook and how far it was compulsive or some form of escape or distraction from our unhappiness.
In doing so he also highlighted the relentlessly positive language social media companies use to describe their products features - for example newsfeed - and suggested we should challenge that language - perhaps triviafeed instead?
Digital Data Funerals - Audrey Samson talked about how difficult it is to delete data that is in the digital world and about Digital Data Funerals as rituals representing what data we wish could be - but can't be - deleted.
In workshops or via other means participants gathered together onto usb memory sticks the data they wished could be deleted so it could be embalmed or ritually destroyed.
Digital Surveillance
Quieting the Niche - Sam Forsythe discussed the effects on knowledge sharing and participation of surveillance - and counter measures against such and the way in which data was used to predict the patterns of people's lives.
Fertile Space - Tanya Kant talked about the Clear Blue Ads (pregnancy/fertility) on You Tube and the algorithmic anticipation - of gender, age, wish to conceive - to target such ads tp particular audiences.
Set against this was the reactions of users against such categorisations and the doubly oppressive anticipation that females of a certain age would be interested in their fertility.
In commenting on such she observed that how although such targeting was based on various correlations of data sets = the way such data sets were described to users used more old fashioned marketing demographics language.
Digital learning - Pinelopi Troullinou talked about the data gathered from students during their study to help them analyse their learning and performance. She described this "seductive surveillance" as offering quantification to students whilst being unclear about the risks of such data gathering.
Datification of student life. Claire Tupling described the type of data now typically gathered in higher education "for the student's own good" and how discussion was less evident about ownership, consent, storage and application of such data. She also remarked on all this data displacing the individuals as the subject of the analysis.
The closing plenary session was on Algorithms
Algorithmic Orientations - Taina Bucher talked about how we describe different platforms algorithms - how we ponder whether such have changed or are new or are frozen - and how we react when we think the algorithim is not working in the way it serves stuff up to us that is "wrong".
Distraction - Susanna Paasonen reflected on how our attention is diverted - our our boredom diverted - by what is served up to us - and while she talke on this subject in the background she had projected a non-repeating sequence of interesting/amusing/diverting gifs.
In /doing so Susanna touched on a number of issues ...
- our loss of focus/shortening of attention spans
- but our increased capacity to handle information
- distraction not necessarily being the opposite of focus/attention
Sunday, 2 April 2017
3min 13sec clip - Alastair Campbell (former Tony Blair Press Sec) talks to his partner Fiona about his mental health experiences #oktosay
The Heads Together campaign is spearheaded by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry to end the stigma around mental health. This film features Alastair Campbell and Fiona Millar.
Alastair is best known for his role as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman, press secretary and director of communications and strategy. He is an Ambassador for Time to Change, Mind, Rethink, Alcohol Concern and Patron of the Maytree Suicide Sanctuary. Alastair has campaigned relentlessly to end stigma around mental health. In this film, he talks to his partner Fiona about his own experiences.
Help them change the conversation on mental health using #oktosay.
For more information including what support is available if you need it visit: http://www.headstogether.org.uk/oktosay
Monday, 14 November 2016
Sunday, 3 January 2016
Monday, 12 January 2015
10 useful links (no. 4) - uk #poverty, online resources for churches, social media lessons, #lent, mental health, 64 twitter resources, #spirituality, internet quote
uk poverty look up tool - found via @thechurchmouse
online resources for churches - found via @dgirardier
buffer's 10 social media lessons we learned about in 2014
church urban fund lent resources
diocese of winchester lent course
passion plays - info about and resources in UK
mind & health - exploring christianity and mental health
a list of 64 twitter resources - by @dgirardier
rsa spiritualise report
just a good quote ....
MeredithGould