Youth Mental Health Insights: Past, Present and Future – Wolfson Summer School 2025

In this blog, Tasnim, an attendee of the 2025 Wolfson Summer School reflects on her experience and shares insight on the learnings from the three-day online course in youth mental health research.

My name is Tasnim, and my previous studies as an MSc student in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health at King’s College London alongside my growing curiosity about youth mental health, inspired my application to the Wolfson Summer School.

In my Child and Adolescent Mental Health module, I gained knowledge about the multifaceted nature of this area through explorations of genetic, psychological, social, and biological perspectives, which has been really insightful. I felt this aligned well with how the Wolfson Centre operates in an interdisciplinary manner. My interest was also rooted in my practical experiences of working in schools with young people, as well as my voluntary experiences as a Peer Mentor and Shout UK crisis volunteer. Therefore, discovering Wolfson Summer School was exciting because it presented a dedicated opportunity to hear professionals dissect even deeper into current issues and specialist research, which could help guide my future career decisions in a more informed way, such as potentially venturing into clinical psychology or policy.

I particularly enjoyed the Day 1 session on ‘Secular Trends in Mental Health’ as it unveiled the importance of collaborating with young people in conjunction with clinicians and policymakers to help address mental health challenges. In another Day 1 session called ‘Prevention of Depression’, I gained awareness of an interesting critical point surrounding the fact that many past psychological intervention studies fail to consider unintended consequences and harm.

Some discussions on Day 3 also stood out to me as they helped portray how important analysing and referring back to research evidence is as opposed to blindly confirming what one thinks should work based on their own ideas and beliefs about effective mental health strategies. This idea perfectly built upon some of my research methods learning from my Master’s, which emphasised the necessity for researchers to examine their reflexivity and positionality when conducting research.

The international cohort enriched the Summer School, offering diverse perspectives on translating and culturally tailoring youth mental health research—a reminder that these issues are global and a key reason why I would recommend it to others.

All in all, I learnt that many mental health conditions are heterogeneous, for example, depression. Therefore, analysing age-segmented groups based on onset could be helpful for future research and intervention development. However, it is important to consider that systemic change is a lengthy process.

I dive deeper into psychology, mental health, and more here: www.tasnimtayo.substack.com

Thank you so much to Tasnim for sharing her experience with us.

Join us in 2026:

Are you interested in joining us for the Wolfson Summer School 2026? Applications are now open and we would love to hear from you.

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