4 Promoting wellbeing

In the previous section you examined some of the factors that affect young people's chances of experiencing mental health problems. This section continues the focus on mental health but takes a more positive stance, exploring the factors that promote young people's mental health and that might enable them to cope with threats to their emotional wellbeing. However, it will be important to carry forward the conclusions reached in previous sections, about diversity and inequality in young people's experience, and about the ‘situated’ nature of wellbeing. For example, you should subject generalised statements about ‘resilience’ and ‘protective factors’ to the same kind of critical analysis that has been used to explore other aspects of current discourses about young people and their wellbeing.