Jake’s Story: Hull Mental
Health Support Team
Contact our MHST service if you need support.
Meet Jake
School can be a big part of a young person’s life, and pressures around exams, workload, friendships and expectations can all affect mental health and wellbeing.
Exam stress is common, but when worry starts to affect sleep, mood, appetite, motivation or time with friends and family, extra support can help.
For Jake, 16, exam pressure had begun to affect much more than his schoolwork. He first attended a school-based exam stress drop-in at St Mary’s College with a practitioner from the Mental Health Support Team (MHST). After four sessions, he decided he wanted some additional one-to-one support.
By the time Jake was assessed by the MHST in February 2026, increased workload and stress around his exams were affecting his mood, energy and everyday life. He had lost interest in things he usually enjoyed, was spending less time with friends and family, felt more tired and had noticed changes in his appetite.
Jake was offered six one-to-one sessions focused on managing stress and gradually reconnecting with activities that could help improve his mood.
Jake is a pseudonym used to protect the young person’s privacy.
The support
Jake took part in six one-to-one sessions designed to help him understand the link between stress, low mood and the things he had stopped doing.
The first sessions focused on helping Jake recognise how exam pressure was affecting his motivation and mood, and how gradually getting back to meaningful activities could help him feel better.
He then explored what mattered to him and identified activities and parts of life that gave him a sense of enjoyment, purpose or connection.
Over the following sessions, Jake worked on gradually reintroducing these activities and building them back into his routine.
The final session focused on recognising the progress he had made and developing a plan to help him keep using the strategies he had learned after the intervention ended.
The outcome
By the end of the six sessions, Jake’s RCADS scores had reduced considerably, showing a clear improvement in his mood and emotional wellbeing.
Jake said that getting back to activities he enjoyed, alongside learning practical ways to manage stress, had helped improve his motivation and made it easier to focus on schoolwork and revision.
He also developed a better understanding of how stress can affect his mood and recognised the importance of continuing to use the strategies he had learned to help prevent things becoming overwhelming again.