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Children in Wales Annual Conference 2018.

The Whole Child: The importance of getting it right

Mapping pupils’ perceptions of the determinants of mental health

and exploring interventions in primary schools –

Reflections on the use of participatory visual methods for engaging pupils in research

Background

Understanding the social, cultural and environmental
backgrounds of schools, through producing context-

relevant knowledge with stakeholders, has been viewed

as one way to improve the effectiveness of interventions
designed to improve the mental health and wellbeing

of students. These stakeholders include a range of

individuals and organisations involved in mental health

services and programmes, including policy-makers,
community organisations and charities, school staff and

pupils.

What we did

This project looked to involve and engage 28 primary
school students aged 9-11 in the research, in order to

produce this context-relevant knowledge. Two visual

activities were developed, piloted and evaluated –
the first, ‘brain mapping’, was used to explore pupils’

perceptions of their determinants of mental health, and

a circle ranking technique was used to explore students’

perspectives on school-based interventions. Participants
were considered research collaborators and had control

over how to represent and communicate their views

using a variety of media.

What we found

The evaluations (which took the form of both in-person ‘It was fun and I got to speak about myself and explain my

dialogue and anonymous forms) from the study indicate feelings’

that both visual methods piloted and used in the project ‘I liked that it was our opinions and that they were fun. Also, there
workshops were relevant, interesting and engaging were no right or wrong answers!’

for a range of pupils in different social, cultural and

environmental settings. ‘I liked that we could do what we wanted and express ourselves’

How can our research help you

This research may be useful for future projects interested in furthering knowledge relative to mental health

and wellbeing in primary schools, as well as those interested in co-developing programmes and interventions

with primary school students. It may also be of interest to practitioners and researchers working with children

around their mental health and wellbeing. For further information contact Stephen Jennings, DECIPHer, School

of Social Sciences, Cardiff University – jenningssj1@cardiff.ac.uk

NCPHWR is funded by

The National Centre for Population Health & Wellbeing Research

www.ncphwr.org.uk