{"id":1071481,"date":"2026-07-06T06:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T06:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1071481\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T06:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T06:58:13","slug":"young-people-rely-on-friends-and-family-over-online-mental-health-resources-survey-finds-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1071481\/","title":{"rendered":"Young people rely on friends and family over online mental health resources, survey finds \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young people are not engaging with online mental health<\/a> services as much as previously thought, instead relying \u201cheavily on informal supports\u201d such as family and friends, new research shows. <\/p>\n

\u201cDigital mental health supports can genuinely help young people\u2026 but only when they are actually trusted and culturally relevant to them,\u201d said Dr Carmen Kealy from the University of Galway<\/a>\u2019s Health Promotion Research Centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system doesn\u2019t really need more online resources, but rather, it should be better integrated into their lives with an easy-to-use, youth-centred design.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young people are facing rising mental health pressures exacerbated by cost-of-living problems, insecure housing, precarious work and long wait lists for early-intervention supports, the research released on Monday by the cross-Border Atlantic Futures Project found. <\/p>\n

It involved a survey of 77 young people between the ages of 16 to 25, with \u201ctargeted recruitment\u201d of migrants, Travellers, queer youth, young people with disabilities, those not in employment or education and those from rural communities. <\/p>\n

Thirty-nine per cent of those surveyed reported experience with a mental health condition, with 62 per cent saying they have previously accessed mental health services. <\/p>\n

\u201cI found that across the island of Ireland … that young people really mainly relied on their friends and that was followed by parents and youth workers,\u201d said Kealy, who was the lead researcher.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pattern was very consistent … we found that friends and family were the first port of call.\u201d <\/p>\n

She added that young people use digital resources more for a \u201clight touch emotional regulation\u201d rather than \u201cstructural therapy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really challenges a lot of the assumptions about what digital mental health services are supposed to be for. So, again, asking young people what they\u2019re actually using it for and what it\u2019s good for is so important in terms of uptake\u201d.<\/p>\n

The most successful digital services benefited from \u201cinstitutional affiliation\u201d, such as from the Health Service Executive, or the UK\u2019s National Health Service, and peer recommendations. <\/p>\n

The mission of such services ranged from providing information and signposting, for example, the HSE Mental Health Resources website or the AsIAm charity, to mood trackers and emotional regulation such as Insight Timer. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe digital space is what young people are using. And to ignore that reality really widens inequalities, especially for marginalised young people who already face long wait lists, social stigma and structural barriers to mental health supports. Meeting young people where they\u2019re at is really what we need to do,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young people are not engaging with online mental health services as much as previously thought, instead relying \u201cheavily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1071482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,21110,218,16,15,163149,215814],"class_list":["post-1071481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-hse","tag-mental-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-university-of-galway","tag-your-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116871738776007863","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1071482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}