Coproducing a school-based mental health literacy programme: exploring the views and experiences of primary school children in North-West England

The last decade has seen a growth in school-based mental health promotion and prevention programmes alongside an increasing expectation that the design and research of such programmes should be co-produced with children and young people to prioritise their voices. However, little is known about how such programmes are designed and experienced by children and young people, particularly in primary schools. This paper addresses this by reporting on original data from focus groups with 65 children (aged 6–11 years) from 10 primary schools in north-west England who took part in the coproduction of a sport- and art-based mental health literacy (MHL) programme, Tackling the Blues (TtB), during the 2022/2023 school year. Three themes were generated: (i) "It's a funnier way of learning stuff": Appealing and age-appropriate coproduction; (ii) "We all have our own opinions, and it just matters … what we think": Respect for different forms of knowledge and creating empowering and safe spaces; and (iii) "The only people that get to choose in this school is (sic) the teachers": Positive and equitable relationships and respect for autonomy and choice. Our findings provide novel insight into children's experiences of coproduction for the development of research and practical advantages of the design of school-based MHL programmes intended to benefit children. We conclude that for the benefits of coproduction to be fully realised, a diverse group of key stakeholders must be committed to sharing power and enacting a set of agreed principles to promote the design and development of future contextually and culturally relevant programmes.