Our response to the Fonagy Review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism
The Fonagy Review adds further evidence to the claim that the wellbeing of young people in England is at crisis point. It finds that 1 in 4 16-24 years olds meets the criteria for a common mental disorder. This sits alongside recently published PISA data, which finds that 15-year-olds in the UK have the lowest life satisfaction of any of the 29 European countries surveyed.
We are grateful to the Review for providing further evidence of this urgent priority, and for its recommendations on prevention and earlier intervention. We know from the Milburn Review Interim Report that poor wellbeing is an important factor in the rising number of young people who are not in education, employment or training. We also know that there is a strong link between poverty and low wellbeing: children from families experiencing financial strain are almost twice as likely to report low life satisfaction.
The Review makes clear that this crisis is a consequence of the changing world around young people, including rising poverty and inequality, rather than simply the result of improved detection and diagnosis. The problem is not within young people, the problem is the world around them.
Prioritising young people's wellbeing as early as possible is essential if we are to reverse this worrying trend. This matters first and foremost for young people themselves, but it also matters for society and the economy. Neither can function effectively if growing numbers of young people are unable to participate fully. We are pleased to see that this report recommends systems change approaches to tackle the drivers of poor wellbeing, echoing our Neighbourhood to National strategy.
The Review rightly recognises that schools can't do this by themselves. Joining up systems and support around children and families is essential so that the school can create the conditions in which young people flourish: people they trust, places where they belong, opportunities to develop independence and competence, and purpose and agency in their lives. Our place-based collaboration work with Mayoral Strategic Authorities is aiming to do this from the early years right through to the transition from school to further education, employment or training.
However, the Review also highlights another challenge that we must confront head-on: not only are we failing to do enough to prioritise young people's wellbeing, but we are also failing to collect the data needed to understand the scale and nature of the problem. It is positive that the Review recommends improved data collection and evaluation of mental disorders, continuous learning systems, more regular national population surveys and improved regular data collection for monitoring at local and national level.
This echoes calls we have made through the Our Wellbeing, Our Voice campaign for a National Wellbeing Measurement Programme for young people. This would provide reliable, granular data on young people's wellbeing across the country. It would enable us to understand how wellbeing intersects with poverty and other protected characteristics. Crucially, it would also provide a robust evidence base for assessing the effectiveness of different approaches and identifying which interventions should be scaled up.
The Pupil Engagement Framework is a positive start. However, as we argue in our Report Card 2026, it could become a much more powerful tool in efforts to improve young people's wellbeing if it were developed further. When we care about something, we measure it. We urge the government to take these recommendations seriously and commit to introducing a national wellbeing measurement programme for young people.