Identity as a Pathway to Wellbeing for Young People.

Identity as a Pathway to Wellbeing for Young People: Unlocking the Potential of Museums and Archaeological Collections to Facilitate Conversations About Identity.

One in five young people (YP) in the United Kingdom are now developing a mental health disorder (NHS 2023; WHO 2022). Despite the need for urgent intervention, figures uncovered by the YMCA (2022) show a devastating £1.1bn cut in youth service funding, including mental health and wellbeing services, between 2010/11 and 2020/21 in England: a real-terms spending cut of 74%.

Mental health (MH) in young people has reached crisis level, and addressing the inequalities in MH and wellbeing support for this demographic should be considered a priority for intervention. A rapid review carried out by Blodgett et. al. (2022) found that wellbeing resources address the symptoms of poor wellbeing but not the causes. The review found that identity (having a clear sense of "self") is an intrinsic component of wellbeing.

Adolescence is crucial for many aspects of developing self and identity, including psychosocial wellbeing; those who hold a clear sense of identity have been shown to have higher self-esteem, sense of purpose, and lower rates of MH conditions (Pfeifer and Berkman 2018: Kolonko 2022). This poses the research question: can providing resources which positively influence YP's sense of identity address wellbeing challenges and offer an empowering way to reconnect with themselves?

This interdisciplinary study, supported by project partner Kids in Museums, will ultimately unite social science, health and archaeology to explore identity as a pathway to wellbeing. It will test whether creating links to identity through interaction with archaeological stimuli can increase wellbeing in YP (ages 11-24). The researcher will co-produce and develop an archaeology inspired "Identity Toolkit" with YP for use in education, community, and heritage settings.

This approach acknowledges the importance of the principle "nothing about us without us", and will approach resource development with equality, reciprocity, and agency (Albert et. al. 2023). Professional experience of heritage projects, along with wellbeing in museums case studies such as from the National Museum of Scotland, indicate that the toolkit may contain artifact trails, personal interpretations, and social media content.

Using archaeology and heritage to achieve cohesion and wellbeing has been explored through two previous University of Bradford projects; BReaTHe (Building Resilience Through Heritage) and Dying2Talk (Evans et al. 2022; Booth et al. 2022), which found archaeology and heritage to be powerful tools for facilitating positive communication around challenging topics. Dying2Talk co[1]produced resources with YP, empowering them to talk about death, which positively impacted their wellbeing, confidence, and sense of self.

The primary impact of the study will support early interventions for wellbeing in our communities, and address some of the gaps and inequalities in adolescent MH support services (Garratt et. Al. 2022). The findings of this study will impact practices in the heritage sector; encouraging museums, as the custodians of archaeological collections, to use artefacts to engage YP, by co-producing resources that can be taken into the community.

The study will enhance academic knowledge, providing evidence of the link between heritage, identity and wellbeing, and extend our understanding of how archaeology can contribute to pressing, contemporary social problems.