As more children and adolescents face mental health challenges and services become increasingly stretched, innovative approaches are essential to improving access to support. This chapter explores initiatives designed to enhance mental health and wellbeing for young people, ensuring they receive the care, skills, and resources needed to thrive.
The case studies within this chapter illustrate the growing emphasis on early intervention, community-driven solutions, and trauma informed care in improving children’s mental health and wellbeing. By fostering collaborative and evidence-based approaches, services can better support the next generation’s emotional resilience and overall development.
Projects featured in this chapter
Pathways to Short Breaks
By Bristol Council
A project that pairs young people with specialist engagement workers to build their resilience through the use of techniques to manage anxiety.
Keeping children engaged in education by #ThinkingDifferently
By Anna Freud, a registered charity
An initiative focusing on strategies to maintain and enhance student engagement in educational settings. It proposes a five-point plan emphasizing youth participation, whole-school approaches, trauma-informed practices, community engagement, and data-driven strategies to enhance student attendance and engagement.
Young People’s Gambling Harm Education Programmes
By GamCare, a registered charity
A programme of free education, training, and support to young people and professionals across the UK, aiming to raise awareness of gambling-related harms.
Coram Innovation Incubator’s Ignite Programme
By Coram, a registered charity
A course designed to equip professionals in children’s services with the confidence and tools to develop, pilot, and implement innovative projects.
Children and Young People’s Trauma Informed Care Programme
By Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Social Care Partnership
A collaboration of partners from across our six places within Humber and North Yorkshire. The model aims to build on existing infrastructure to strengthen pathways and collaborative working while testing new models of delivery to improve outcomes.
Face It
By Khulisa, a registered charity
A six-week, school-based intervention designed to support young people aged 11–16 who are at risk of exclusion or involvement in the criminal justice system. Delivered by trained therapists, the programme employs creative techniques such as storytelling, art, debating, and role-play to help participants explore the root causes of their emotional distress, build emotional self-regulation, resilience, and social skills.
Wakefield Awareness Support Project
By Kids, a registered charity
A specialised service providing tailored emotional well-being support for children and young people aged 5–18 experiencing anxiety or low mood associated with autism spectrum conditions or other neurodevelopmental challenges, regardless of formal diagnosis. The service offers individualised interventions such as Lego Therapy and Big Life Journal activities for children, alongside peer-led support and training for parents, with the aim of fostering resilience and confidence within families.
Bridges
By Manx Care and St Christopher’s Fellowship, a registered charity
A service designed to improve the mental health and wellbeing of children, young people, and their families before and after care within the Isle of Man community. With a focus on early intervention, the service offers AMBIT informed intensive therapeutic support (Adaptive Mentalisation Based Integrative Treatment) to families in crisis and experiencing difficulties that could result in a child or young person coming into care.
Redesign of SEMH services
By Newcastle City Council
Learnings from the restructure of Newcastle’s primary school support for children with social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) needs by replacing four additionally resourced provisions (ARPs) with a citywide, school-embedded specialist team.
Coproduced services putting young people at the heart of mental health support
By Dyfodol Ni, a youth-led partnership of 17 organisations across Ceredigion
A youth-led initiative aiming to enact systemic change in the way services supporting young people’s mental health operate. The intention is to create a model for the provision of safe spaces and the promotion of youth voice that can be rolled out, first at a county level, and then at a national level.
Sonic Minds
By Lewisham Music, a registered charity
An award-winning music programme to explore and deepen understanding of the connection between music-making and young people’s emotional wellbeing. Through collaborative songwriting, music production, and culturally responsive workshops, the project provided safe spaces for participants to express themselves, build confidence, and foster a sense of belonging.
Building Connections
By UK Youth, a registered charity
An employability initiative helping young people who are not in education, employment, or training, to identify their passions and interests whilst providing personalised guidance to achieve their career goals.
This report, the third to be produced by Coram’s Innovation Incubator, seeks to collate projects and approaches developed from across the sector in a bid to tackle key challenges faced by children’s services by thinking in new ways. It offers a space for lessons to be shared, products and approaches to be known about and the opportunity to celebrate the people effecting change across the country as a collective force for positive change.
Download the full report here.
About the Coram Innovation Incubator
Children’s chances in life still depend on where they live and who they live with, and 2.3 million children are living with risk in the UK. In the digital-first generation, up to 1 in 6 children face mental health challenges. Resources available do not reflect the scale of need and there are unacceptable variations in availability and quality of services, education and childcare.
The Coram Innovation Incubator exists to meet these challenges. As a membership organisation for leaders and managers within children’s services, we support our members to develop, test, evaluate and scale innovative solutions that improve the quality and impact of children’s services. We facilitate, celebrate and catalyse innovations that lead to significant and sustained impacts on children’s life chances.
Innovation is the creation or adoption of new ideas, methods, or products. It encompasses both technological advancements and novel approaches in various fields. Innovation is the catalyst for positive change. It fuels progress, fosters economic development and shapes our future.
“Being part of the Coram Innovation Incubator has been absolutely beneficial to us. We have learned so much along the way and the generating and sharing of ideas, has encouraged innovation within our LA.” –Aneesa Kaprie, Transformation Lead, London Borough of Bromley
How you can innovate further
Become a member of the Coram Innovation Incubator with access to innovation coaching and innovation project partnership.
Attend our upcoming event: From Insight to Impact: AI, Intersectionality, and the Future of Children’s Services on Monday 15 September 2025.
Get in touch with us to tell us about any promising innovations you’ve seen from across the sector.
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