JSNA Blog - April

Welcome to the JSNA blog for April 2026

Felixstowe mist with boat. — Felixstowe mist with boat

As always, we welcome comments, feedback and suggestions.

Photo by Jo at Suffolk County Council

We welcome your photos of Suffolk to use in a future blog!

Email us at: knowledgeandIntelligence@suffolk.gov.uk

From Healthwatch Suffolk to Knowing Works

From March 2026, Healthwatch Suffolk CIC has become Knowing Works CIC, delivering lived‑experience insight across sectors, while the statutory Healthwatch Suffolk service continues unchanged. People will still engage with Healthwatch in the same ways, with Knowing Works sitting alongside it to strengthen independent, evidence‑led insight for shaping services, policy and strategy. You can find out more on the Knowing Works website.

**Listening to children and young people in Suffolk: what My Health, Our Future (MHoF) is telling us now**

Understanding how children and young people experience their lives, health and wellbeing is essential to effective local planning. The latest My Health, Our Future (MHoF) findings from Knowing Works (previously Healthwatch Suffolk) provide one of the most comprehensive and consistent sources of insight into young people’s lived experience in Suffolk – and the messages are both clear and challenging.

Nearly 10,000 young people took part in the annual survey, answering questions on their current mental health and related topics.

The most recent findings reinforce a pattern seen across recent years: many young people in Suffolk are navigating multiple pressures that interact and compound one another.

My Health, Our Future is an ongoing programme led by Knowing Works, capturing the views of children and young people across Suffolk through large‑scale, repeat surveys delivered in schools and colleges. Over time, the programme has built a rich picture of young people’s emotional wellbeing, safety, relationships, behaviours and support needs, allowing trends to be tracked and local differences to be explored.

Emotional wellbeing and anxiety
On average, young people in Suffolk report lower happiness and higher anxiety than national comparators for 16–24‑year‑olds. A sizeable minority describe feeling socially isolated, with a notable proportion saying they rarely or never feel close to others (16% of students (1,579)). Half of students reported ‘very high’ or ‘high’ levels of happiness.

Sleep, digital behaviours and wellbeing
More than half of students do not achieve recommended sleep levels. Social media use remains high, with many young people spending four or more hours online on a typical school night. On a typical school or college night, 38% were using it for four hours or more in 2017/18. This has increased to 46% of students in 2024/25. Higher levels of social media use are strongly associated with poorer sleep and lower reported wellbeing, highlighting the interconnected nature of these behaviours rather than a single causal factor.

Safety and bullying
In 2018, 15% of students indicated they had been bullied in their community. This compares to 31% of students who said they felt ‘unsafe’ in the community because of bullying in 2024/25 – a figure that increases to 41% of students with any number of additional support needs identified in the survey (e.g., being a family carer, or living with a disability).

Harassment
Many young people also report witnessing or experiencing behaviours linked to sexual harassment or violence within school or college settings. More than two out of every five students indicated they had seen or heard at least one form of potential sexual harassment or violence in their school or college. These experiences have clear implications for mental health, engagement with education and trust in support systems.

Whilst this article summarises some of the key information, there is much more detail within the full report.

These findings matter because they sit at the intersection of education, health, community safety and wider determinants of health. They reinforce that:

Young people’s wellbeing is shaped by everyday environments – schools, online spaces and communities – not just access to services.
Experiences are not evenly distributed; young people with additional needs consistently report poorer outcomes and lower feelings of safety.
Prevention and early support must address multiple, overlapping issues such as sleep, digital use, bullying and social connection rather than treating them in isolation.

Insights from My Health, Our Future are actively used across our Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA). The findings inform commissioning decisions and local strategies for children and young people’s health and wellbeing. The latest findings have been incorporated in our upcoming Mental Health Needs Assessment (due end of May 2026). MHoF provides vital unique insights about Suffolk’s younger people, ensuring that planning reflects what young people say matters most.

View the profile and our other JSNA products using the JSNA searchable index below:

Recent national publications:

Strengths-based support for neurodivergent children and young people: Up to 70% of neurodivergent children and young people experience mental health problems during their school years, with particularly high prevalence among autistic girls and young people from racialised communities. New research shows why standard mental health approaches often fall short—and how strengths‑based, sensory‑informed support could improve wellbeing and reduce long‑standing inequalities.
The state of health and social care in 2026: This national Healthwatch report report draws on the 390,000 experiences heard between October 2023 and September 2025. They combine these with external data to explore ten areas of care that people talk to us about the most. Whilst each one faces individual issues; key themes emerge over and over.
Shifting power- The role of population-level, anti-racist interventions in addressing inequities in mental health: Racism embedded in systems like housing, work and access to green space continues to drive deep and preventable mental health inequalities across the life course. Shifting power argues that meaningful change depends on population‑level, anti‑racist action—backed by community leadership and a move beyond individual clinical responses to tackle the root causes of harm.
Screen use by children aged under five: independent report Early Years Screen Time Advisory Group: Digital technology is now woven into everyday family life, but new UK evidence is clear that screens should complement—not replace—play, exploration and responsive adult‑child interaction in the early years. This expert review sets out what we know about screen use under five, why balance matters for healthy development, and how guidance can help children thrive in a digital world.

This month the JSNA workplan is focused on:

Finalising a healthy pregnancy profile
Finalising the Mental Health Needs Assessment
Drafting a men's health profile
Drafting an inclusion health profile
We are planning annual updates to our core infographics on the website
Scoping new profiles on the end of life, alcohol, substance misuse, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), and respiratory health

The Suffolk Observatory

The Suffolk Observatory contains all Suffolk’s vital statistics. It is the one-stop-shop for data, statistics and reports all about Suffolk provided by a variety of organisations.

Through data, reports and analysis, the Suffolk Observatory provides a comprehensive picture of the county and is a great source for useful facts and figures that will help you write reports and presentations, inform strategic and business planning, prepare funding applications or support academic research.

Take a look at the SODA reports page for all the recent publications by the Suffolk Office of Data and Analytics.

JSNA Blog - April

From Healthwatch Suffolk to Knowing Works

Listening to children and young people in Suffolk: what My Health, Our Future (MHoF) is telling us now

What is My Health, Our Future?

Key messages from the latest findings

Why this matters for Suffolk

How this insight is used

My Health, Our Future (At Home)

Recent national publications:

This month the JSNA workplan is focused on:

The Suffolk Observatory

**Listening to children and young people in Suffolk: what My Health, Our Future (MHoF) is telling us now**