Mental Health Needs of Young Women and Girls

In 2025, the Centre for Young Lives and Agenda Alliance were commissioned by the Prudence Trust and the Pilgrim Trust to explore the rise in poor mental health amongst girls and young women, and to better understand the role that philanthropy can play in supporting girls and young women to grow up well.

Why girls’ and young women’s mental health?

The mental health crisis facing children and young people is one of the most pressing issues facing our society. For girls and young women in particular, rates of poor mental health have risen sharply over the past decade. Despite this concerning trend, there has been little recognition of girls and young women’s mental health in public or policy discourse.

With youth services and the voluntary sector already overstretched and grants for mental health and wellbeing support for girls and young women making up less than 1% of mental health and wellbeing grants more broadly, girls and young women experiencing poor mental health are left struggling alone – slipping through the cracks of a fragmented patchwork of support.

Our methodology

Pooling our expertise on the needs of children and young people and the women and girls’ voluntary sector, we conducted new research on the role of philanthropy in addressing the girls and young women’s mental health crisis – conducting an evidence review (including analysis of a 360 Giving Grant Nav search), convening a roundtable for sector stakeholders, conducting interviews with experts from the women and girls’, youth and mental health sectors, and running a theory of change workshop with the Prudence Trust and the Pilgrim Trust to support the synthesis of our findings.

Funding the future of girls and young women's mental health

Our final report sets out key priorities for early intervention and prevention, and emphasises that support must be trauma-informed and culturally specific, creating a safe space that is both gender- and age-specific, and co-designed with girls and young women to ensure their voices are centred. The report also illustrates the role of philanthropic organisations in supporting this work – setting out ten recommendations for funders to deliver change in the girls’ and young women’s mental health space by acting boldly and collaboratively to invest not only in services, but in the relationships, evidence, and infrastructure that sustain them.