The hidden shield: emotional support amid childhood poverty and adversity

Adolescence is a pivotal stage of life. It is a period of growth, independence and discovery, but also a time when young people are particularly vulnerable. In the UK, growing levels of mental health problems among children and young people are a pressing concern, with prevalence and inequalities widening in recent years. In England, for example, around 1 in 5 children and young people is estimated to have a probable mental disorder. This impacts the individual but also has consequences for their families and for society as a whole.

Our research, funded by the Health Foundation through its Emotional Support for Young People programme, set out to understand the role emotional support plays in shaping adolescent mental health. We wanted to know how family circumstances, including household poverty, influence young people’s mental health, and whether emotional support can help protect them from the effects of poverty and family adversity. This blog explores these findings and their wider implications for society.

Poverty, parental mental health and adolescent mental health

Our longitudinal study, drawing upon data on almost 19,000 young people born in the UK between 2000 and 2002 and followed up through seven survey waves, reveals a stark reality. We found that family circumstances matter profoundly for young people’s development. The findings reveal that more than half of children and young people in the UK are exposed to either family poverty or poor parental mental health during childhood. Around 1 in 10 grow up experiencing both at the same time, and this combination has the most damaging impact.

By age 17, young people exposed to persistent poverty and parental mental health problems are more than four times as likely to experience behavioural problems and more than twice as likely to face poor mental health compared with their more advantaged peers. In fact, around 40% of socio-emotional problems in adolescence could be attributed to the co-occurrence of poverty and poor parental mental health (Figure 1). These findings highlight how closely family wellbeing and young people’s mental health are linked, and how urgently upstream drivers and wider determinants need attention.

Why emotional support matters

Amid these risks, emotional support within families emerged as a powerful protective factor. At age 14, our research found that around 13% of adolescents reported low levels of emotional support. This means that they often lacked someone to talk to openly, confide in, or turn to for advice. Unsurprisingly, this lack of support was more common among those living in poverty or with parents experiencing poor mental health.

Indeed, the presence of emotional support made a tangible difference, according to our study. Young people who had experienced family adversity, including poverty and poor parental mental health, were nearly three times more likely to develop poor mental health. But when strong emotional support was available, this risk was significantly reduced by up to 18% at age 14, and 13% at age 17. In other words, supportive family relationships do not eliminate the effects of household poverty and adversity, but they can cushion some of the harm and help young people build resilience during this formative stage.

Unequal access to emotional support

Crucially, access to this protective resource is unequally distributed. We found that adolescents from families with lower income and lower parental education consistently report less emotional support (Figure 2). Those exposed to persistent poverty and parental mental health problems are at greatest risk of feeling unsupported. This creates a cycle in which the same young people who face the highest risks for poor mental health are also least likely to have the resources that could help protect them.

Creating the conditions for support

The lesson from our research is clear: family support matters, providing a protective role in the wellbeing and development of young people. But families cannot be expected to shoulder the burden alone. Emotional support is shaped by broader social and economic conditions. Poverty, insecure work and poor parental mental health all reduce parents’ and caregivers’ capacity to provide the consistent support their children need. Improving adolescent mental health therefore requires action on these wider determinants. This means reducing child poverty, investing in parental mental health services and ensuring those parenting young people as well as younger children can access support. It also means funding youth services where young people can build relationships of trust outside the home.

The problem is that emotional support is not always available to those who need it most. Strengthening emotional support must therefore become a public health priority. By tackling poverty and supporting parents and caregivers, we can create the conditions in which young people feel cared for, listened to and valued. Every adolescent deserves someone they can turn to. Ensuring that emotional support is available could be one of the most effective steps we take to improve the health and wellbeing of the next generation. 

If we are serious about improving young people’s mental health, government must tackle child poverty, support parental wellbeing and invest in youth services. Strengthening emotional support is not optional – it is essential.