Affiliated with SHINE since 2025

SHINE partnered with Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Jala Rizeq, and PhD student, Natalia Verdugo,  from the Mental Health and Wellbeing Unit at the University of Glasgow to create a new resource for school communities to support young people to achieve positive goals using future thinking. Funded by the ESRC IAA award, the project set out to co-develop the resource with staff and young people from schools in East Ayrshire Council.

Following staff and pupil workshops in 2 schools in Autumn 2025, along with consultation with teachers from across Scotland from the SHINE teachers’ panel, a draft of the resource was refined over the year after regular feedback sessions. This wellbeing resource for use in schools facilitates psychoeducation around helpful ways of thinking to manage emotions, support engagement with positive goal pursuit, and maintain positive wellbeing. It is meant to support pupils in practicing helpful thinking about future events, supporting pupils in setting intentions, planning, and approaching situations that can help them achieve positive goals.

The resource includes the guidelines for teachers along with the accompanying lesson plans, power points and worksheets for three lessons:

1. Wellbeing and how it impacts our lives
2. Introduction to future thinking
3. Future thinking and behaviour

The resource will be officially launched on 30th September 2026, as part of the SHINE expert webinar series. Teachers can sign up to find out more about the resource and how to access it by signing up for the webinar here.

Affiliated with SHINE since 2025

A partnership between the University of Edinburgh Generation Scotland team and the University of Glasgow SHINE team, funded by Research Data Scotland

Why Big Data Matters is a new teaching resource for secondary schools to increase young people’s knowledge of and confidence with the use of health data research.

Designed for S1 to S3 classes, the three 40-minute lesson plans explain what health data research is, how it is used to support decision-making in order to improve public health over time and the importance of young people’s contributions (SCN 3-20a).

Scotland’s public health relies on volunteers taking part in research projects to better understand health and well-being in Scotland. This resource aims to inform young people about research methods, how privacy is protected and how volunteering to participate can make a difference to the health of wider society (HWB 3-13a).

This resource will support the development of data literacy skills (TCH 0-01a), an understanding of citizenship in relation to scientific discovery and also how health choices can impact on individuals and the wider society. (HWB 4-28a).

Download lesson plan (44MB) in zip format: Download

Thanks to funding from Research Data Scotland we have been able to create videos to support the Why Big Data Matters Lesson Plan: View Videos

Affiliated with SHINE since 2023

Professor Kirstin Mitchell, University of Glasgow

ESAS is a whole school approach to address gender-based violence in secondary schools in Scotland. It helps schools build a positive culture in which staff and students work together to prevent GBV and feel more confident and skilled in responding to incidents and disclosures of sexual harassment/violence. 35/36 schools recruited. One past place available for the evaluation.

Find out more: ESAS website

Affiliated with SHINE in 2019

Professor Danny Smith, University of Glasgow

Young people who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to suffer from mood problems, and in some cases even depression. Poor sleep can also affect school performance and physical health, including greater risk of being overweight. It is therefore very important to understand whether children and adolescents in Scotland are affected by poor sleep, and whether this is linked to mood, wellbeing and general health.

Find out more: Sleep in Schools research briefing

Affiliated with SHINE in 2020

Professor David Porteous, Generation Scotland, University of Edinburgh

TeenCovidLife provides a voice for young people by inviting them to take part in an online survey about health and wellbeing. From 22nd May – 5th July 2020, we invited young people, aged 12-17, across Scotland to take part in a survey investigating how lockdown affected them. The survey included questions about social distancing, home schooling and cancelled exams.

Find out more: TeenCovidLife survey findings

Affiliated with SHINE in 2020

Professor Danny Smith, University of Glasgow

The SCRAMS project builds on SHINE’s well-established links with schools in Scotland to develop a UK-wide research collaboration focused on investigating sleep and mental health within schools.

Find out more: SCRAMS website

Affiliated with SHINE in 2021

Dr Rhys Bevan-Jones, Cardiff University

Many young people are not getting any help and there are long waiting lists for services. This web programme/app was developed for young people with young people and families/carers to support young people’s mood and well-being. It uses engaging illustrations and animations to communicate information about mental health and offers personalised support, flagging the most relevant information to the individual user.

Moodhwb was awarded a ‘Digital Innovation Award’ by the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH).

Publication: A Web-Based Psychoeducational Intervention for Adolescent Depression: Design and Development of MoodHwb

Affiliated with SHINE in 2022

Dr Claire Goodfellow, University of Glasgow

Stigma is a key barrier to help-seeking for a mental health problem among adolescents. This is particularly concerning as adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the emergence of mental health problems. Adolescents are also among the least likely to seek help. This may be due to lower mental health literacy among this age group (ie. young people’s knowledge about causes and treatments of mental health problems and hoe to seek help), and also due to high level of perceived stigma from peers and family.

This research project aims to speak to young people living in rural communities about how stigma towards mental health problems affects them and their willingness to seek help and also to have young people co-produce dissemination materials to ensure that key research findings are shared in a way that is maximally engaging for young people and other key audiences they identify.

Publication: Mental health literacy and adolescent help-seeking: the mediating and moderating effects of personal and perceived stigmas

Affiliated with SHINE in 2022

Dr Mark McCann, University of Glasgow

This project aims to explore the many different mechanisms through which friendships, emotional support, and strained relationships may affect wellbeing, social development, health risk behaviours and educational aspirations. The whole school approach to health improvement can be enhanced with a better understanding of the relational mechanisms influencing health (e.g. peer influence, social learning, or social exclusion) combined with better data on structure and collective behaviour within and between peer friendship groups.

Find out more: Net4Health webpage

Affiliated with SHINE in 2022

Professor Gale MacLeod, Dr Martin Toye and Dr Robin Dallas-Childs, University of Edinburgh

This project explores the routes into and social consequences of a behaviour diagnosis in secondary school for young people. This project works with Scottish secondary pupils, their families and school staff to explore what it is like to have a diagnosis for a neurodevelopmental disorder such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and behavioural disorders such as Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). The study also looks at what it is like for pupils who do not have a diagnosis of a behavioural disorder but who at times and for various reasons can need some additional support to help them manage their behaviour in school. The study explores the reasons why some pupils are referred for diagnosis, and others are not.

Find out more: Beyond Behaviour webpage

Affiliated with SHINE since 2023

Professor Sharon Simpson and Dr Anne Martin, University of Glasgow

A peer-led school-based programme to reduce night-time interactive electronic device and social media use among young people (12-13 years). Health researchers from the Universities of Glasgow and Cardiff worked with young people, school staff and parents/guardians/carers to develop this programme in both Scotland and Wales. Five Scottish schools trialled the intervention in 2024.

Outputs:

CLOCK OFF study information video

CLOCK OFF study participant recruitment video

Affiliated with SHINE since 2023

Dr Heather Whalley, University of Edinburgh

This project explores new methods to measure young people’s sleep. Young people are invited to act as citizen scientists and product reviewers to trial and assess the new methods proposed.

The Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow have joined forces, with the support of SHINE, to work with young people from the age of 8 to 18 years to help shape a study into sleep in young people, which uses new contactless sleep monitors to track sleep patterns across this age range. 48 young people were successfully recruited

Find out more: AMBIENT-Teens Sleep Study website. 

Affiliated with SHINE since 2024

Dr Jason Lang, University of Glasgow

The aim of the project is to collaborate with key stakeholders to co-create, implement, and evaluate comprehensive whole-school interventions or initiatives to improve outcomes and experiences of neurodivergent children and young people within the secondary education sector. Through this project, we seek to foster a more inclusive and supportive educational environment.

Neurodiversity in Scottish Schools: Executive Summary.

Lang, Jason, Press, Melea , Wood, Rebecca , Inchley, Jo , Haughton, Dawn, MacIntyre, Alison and Russell, Hazel (2025) Neurodiversity in Scottish Schools: A framework for the implementation of a neurodiversity affirming change project in Scottish secondary schools. Project Report. University of Glasgow