According to The Mental Health Foundation:
- 50% of mental health challenges are established by age 14 and 75% by age 24
- 20% of adolescents may experience a mental health challenge in any one year
- 10% of children and young people have a clinically diagnosable mental health challenge
Children’s Mental Health Week is taking place between 7 – 13th February 2022. This year’s theme is Growing Together. The idea is for children and adults to consider how they have grown and how they can help each other continue to grow.
Physical growth is important and usually easy to identify. Growing emotionally is just as important! To grow into confident, compassionate, resilient adults, children need to grow up knowing that is ok to feel the emotions they are experiencing, that it’s ok to express them, and that it is ok to feel supported as they work through them. There will inevitably be challenges and setbacks throughout a child’s life, but as adults, we can model how to use these setbacks to help us grow, give us the courage to try new things, and propel us into our limitless potential. It is important to remind ourselves that emotional growth is often a gradual process that happens over time, and we can all feel a bit stuck sometimes – adults and children alike. But together, we can acknowledge, accept, and support one another through these times.
New Leaf Recovery and Wellbeing College offers a plethora of free courses to anyone aged 18+ living in Hertfordshire, and we acknowledge that many of our students are parents or grandparents, have contact with children of family and friends, or work with children, and as such, play a vital role in their wellbeing and support network. Much of the information shared through New Leaf courses can be applied to helping children and young people too. Courses such as Five Steps to Wellbeing, Understanding Anxiety, Mindfulness for Everyday Life, and Having a Positive Relationship with Social Media. Bear in mind though, that the information will need to be adapted to make it age appropriate.
We also can’t underestimate the potential impact of a caregiver’s mental health on children and adolescents. By you attending the College courses as part of your recovery, to improve your own mental health and wellbeing, or if you attend a course simply to gain more knowledge about mental health, this will naturally have a positive impact on the children around you too.
Place2Be launched the first Children’s Mental Health Week in 2015 to shine a spotlight on the importance of children’s and young people’s mental health. For more information on the Week, or for free resources and activities that can be adapted for use by children themselves, parents and caregivers, in schools or other education settings, you can click on the website link below.
www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk