Accelerating impact
Accelerating better outcomes for young people's mental health
YPMH has developed the Understand : Innovate : Implement (U:I:I) methodology to turn research into practical, scalable interventions. These interventions aim to prevent, detect early and reduce mental health conditions, such as depression, in young people.
Progress is often slowed because mental health is not yet understood in a joined-up way across social, psychological and biological factors. Research does not always translate into practical interventions, and putting solutions into practice often requires change at both individual and organisational levels. As a result, strong evidence and good ideas too often fail to reach the people and settings where they could make the greatest difference.
Learn more about each stage:
Challenges and barriers
Achieving better mental health outcomes for young people is complex. Multiple interrelated factors make it difficult to develop and deliver effective intervention at scale.
Complex risk factors
Mental health conditions result from the interplay of biological, psychological and social influences from early life onwards. The wide range of contributing factors – including genetics, family context, environment, social and societal pressures, trauma and lifestyle factors such as food and exercise – make it challenging to fully understand how conditions develop and where to intervene effectively.
Range of potential interventions
There are many kinds of intervention – including prevention, early detection, personalised management and treatment – each addressing different needs and operating within distinct regulatory environments.
Translating research into practice
Turning research into implementation-ready innovations involves multiple stages – from identifying unmet needs and generating ideas to developing, validating and selecting projects for investment. It also requires understanding user requirements and designing, testing and validating solutions within appropriate regulatory frameworks.
Portfolios of near-, medium- and long-term innovations, reflecting different levels of research and technology readiness, must be managed across care stages and organisational contexts such as schools or public health systems.
Successful translation depends on collaboration among many actors, including innovators, end users, implementers, funders and regulators.
Implementation challenges
Successful implementation often requires:
- Individual behaviour change – people need the motivation, capability and opportunity to adopt new behaviours.
- Organisational change – from schools to healthcare settings, organisations need resources, skills and structures to implement and sustain change.
- System-wide coordination – organisations across the mental health ecosystem must work together to ensure coherent prevention, early detection and treatment.
- Policy and regulatory change – action is needed not only within health but also in relation to social risk factors such as food and nutrition, safety, education, employment opportunities, housing quality, digital environments, community cohesion and access to green space.
How YPMH overcomes these barriers
At YPMH, we address these challenges by combining:
- Structured, research-based methods – to support robust problem-solving, ideation, evaluation and prioritisation of innovations; intervention design, development and evaluation; and implementation and change management for individuals and organisations.
- Facilitated stakeholder engagement – to understand needs and perspectives, generate and validate ideas and unmet needs, co-design impactful interventions and ways of working within and between organisations, and support collaborative change processes.
This combination enables the development of practical, scalable, evidence-informed and user-acceptable solutions that improve mental health outcomes by changing systems, not just adding new services.
Our methodology
Using this methodology, we guide organisations and individuals across the mental health ecosystem to:
Understand
In a systematic way:
- The social, psychological and biological factors and mechanisms that can lead to mental health conditions
- Where in these pathways we can best intervene to prevent, detect early, diagnose, manage and treat conditions
Innovate
Turning understanding into actionable solutions by:
- Identifying, prioritising, developing and validating innovations that address clearly defined unmet needs and are ready for implementation
- Building portfolios of innovations for:
- Each stage of care, from prevention through early detection and diagnosis to personalised management and treatment
- Organisations in a societal settings, such as educational, employers and justice
- Health and social care organisations, including public health to primary, secondary and tertiary care
- Policy and regulation contexts
Together, this enables the development of practical, scalable, evidence-informed solutions that improve outcomes by changing how systems function.
Implement
Getting innovations into practical use across society, and widely used by:
Individuals, families and carers
Our approaches help:
- Develop motivation – the reason to take action
- Build capability – the skills and knowledge to act
- Provide opportunity – the circumstances and support that make change possible
- Sustain behaviour change through practical tools and resources
Organisations
Our approaches help:
- Clarify mental health goals and priorities
- Define problems and requirements for solutions
- Design conceptual and detailed operating models:
- Conceptual – a stakeholder-agreed model describing how the innovation will work in practice
- Detailed – the capabilities, capacity and competences needed for the model to work effectively
- Develop the processes, resources and materials required for implementation
- Deploy, refine and operate interventions to deliver intended outcomes
- Review operating models periodically to integrate improvements and maintain alignment with evolving systems and processes
Policymakers and regulators
We continue to develop and apply approaches that support policy and regulatory change.
Working together for change
Improving mental health outcomes requires action at every level. By collaborating with organisations in education, healthcare, policy and research, YPMH helps accelerate innovation and implementation across the mental health ecosystem.