Children’s Mental Health Week 2025
Children’s Mental Health Week 2-9th February 2025
Authored by: Ela Augustyniak, MA, AFHEA,
Edited by: Rachel Barker
Can you confidently say you know yourself? It takes time and conscious effort to be able to answer this question positively. The speed of life and its daily demands take their toll on us. Wars, conflicts, natural disasters, personal circumstances, hardships, or just relationships with other humans have a profound impact on mental health. These impacts are not age-selective, and so they also affect children and adolescents.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO):
“Globally, one in seven 10-19 year-olds experiences a mental disorder, accounting for 15% of the global burden of disease in this age group. Depression, anxiety and behavioural disorders are among the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents.” (1)
The figures have increased considerably following the Covid-19 pandemic as shown by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation:
Interestingly, mental health disorders affect both sexes almost equally.
What are the driving factors?
Adolescence (10 -19 years) is a period of transition, of discovering who a young person is and what role they play in this world. These are formative years in many aspects of physical, as well as mental development. They are filled with challenges posed by the environment in which young people grow and function. Today’s adolescents have experienced firsthand the effects of social isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, they are adapted to the increasingly interconnected globalised digital world, which brings risks and previously unknown challenges such as cyberbullying, online hate, and toxic influencers promoting things like misogyny or eating disorders. Traumatic events, difficult family events or circumstances, socio-economic hardship, relationships with peers, academic and social pressures or cultural norms can all determine the mental health of children and adolescents.
This year’s Children’s Mental Health Week, 2-9th February 2025 features the theme “Know Yourself, Grow Yourself” to accentuate the necessity of self-awareness and emotional intelligence development from the very young age. Building resilience is a tool that adults can gift the younger generation to prepare them for future in which they will be able to thrive. The world of emotions can be overwhelming. Acquiring emotional competences is like learning a new language; it takes time, practice and effort under good guidance. Just like a language is absorbed through experiences in various contexts and environments, emotional intelligence is a skill that will be polished in various environments. For children and teens these will be at school, and with their peers as well as their family and immediate community. The World Health Organization and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report published in October 2024 calls for de- institutionalising of the mental health care for children and teens and replacing it with support and services within the community (2).
Barriers to care
Click the link here to learn more about:
MMAP Measuring mental health for adolescents and young people at the population level
There are many reasons why children and teens in need do not receive mental health support or care. The most common ones are lack of awareness, stigma, and scarce resources, both financial and human. The call for a shift towards community-based support offers potential solutions and opens new opportunities for tackling issues.
Inspiring examples
The WHO and UNICEF report provides some inspiring examples from countries around the globe on responding to the mental health needs of children and teens.
In Texas, United States of America, Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium launched a programme named the Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine (TCHATT) in which child psychologists, counsellors, adolescent psychiatrist, social workers at twelve academic institutions are connected with schools. They provide free services remotely. By August 2022 the programme reached over 40 % of school across the state.(2)
In Kenya the Tuko Pamoja programme capitalised on well-established community leaders, such as religious head people to deliver support to families. The selected and trained lay counsellors deliver the psychoeducational programme, founded in evidence, to help build the parent- child relationship as well as deal with distress in families.(2)
In 2015 with the support of UNICEF, Path2Heatlh foundation in Thailand opened an online platform Love Care Station addressed to adolescents. It acts as support for that age group on health-related matters including mental health. The experience of a 15-year-old Thai boy who lived with the consequences of disability coupled with difficult family situation and effects of bullying serves as a beautiful example of how such tools can save lives. Read Aon’s story by clicking here.(3)
Unfortunately, not all stories have such a positive outcome. According to WHO data from 2021, approximately 46,000 adolescents die by suicide each year globally.(4)
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents (10–19 years old) worldwide (4), accounting for about 9.1% of all adolescent deaths amidst 90 countries studied by Danuta Wasserman, Qi Cheng and Guo-Xin Jiang (5).
Schools naturally serve as spaces where children and teens can have access to mental health support. Many schools in the United Kingdom offer pastoral care. It is usually either a religious leader trained in providing mental health support or a trained counsellor from charities, like Place2 BE, who provides counselling to children and teens within schools.
Last academic year alone 45,000 children and adolescents benefitted from Place 2Be services across the country.
Recent years have also been marked by the growing impact of animal-assisted therapy. There has been a noticeable increase in the offer of equine-assisted therapies, available mainly privately.
The British Horse Society has pioneered a programme addressed to children and adolescents who, for various reasons, have fallen out of the educational system and struggle with their emotional well-being. Changing Lives Through Horses (CLTH)’ vision is:
“To inspire individuals who may be disengaged, disadvantaged or vulnerable to connect with their society or community through working with horses”
Through activities related to equine care and/or riding programme participants develop the six key life skills that are transferable back to school or further education opportunities, practice learning skills linked to their school curriculum, and build a portfolio of equine knowledge and experience that could lead to a pathway of further industry qualifications.
The programme is actively running across 138 riding centres dotted around the country. Its effectiveness and impact have been evaluated over the last two years by a research team led by Dr Lindsey Roberts from the University of Buckingham.
The structured interviews demonstrated improvements in physical and mental health including:
- The importance of forming social bonds and friendship
- Psychological benefits including increase in self-esteem, confidence and resilience.
- Physical health improvements.
- The positive impact on mental health
- The key role of coaches and CLTH staff in influencing individual outcomes.
Feedback from participants:
What can we do?
As public health professionals, we are all committed to promoting well-being for all ages and ensuring everyone leads healthy lives. We should be proud of the work that was done that saw infant and child mortality rates steadily decline over the 21st Century, now we need to improve the quality of that life by putting that same effort into tackling the prevalence of mental health issues. Not addressing children’s mental health conditions has consequences that extend to adulthood, creating lifelong limitations and impacting not just individuals but their families and communities. Therefore, we must act as leaders in our communities to address the stigma, lack of awareness, and low resource allocation for mental health programmes for children. To have any chance of attaining the Mental Health Agenda for 2030 and the targets of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 requires promoting health literacy, investing in primary healthcare, and addressing the commercial and socio-economic determinants of health across the life span.
Watch:
Watch: this webinar to find why data on adolescents’ mental health is urgently needed to guide effective prevention and treatment programmes and to inform decisions about resource allocation.
Read:
The UNICEF and WHO joint programme on mental health and psychosocial well-being and development of children and adolescents.
Learn:
Take the World Health Organization’s QualityRights e-training programme on mental health, recovery, and community inclusion course. The interactive course, available in 11 languages, has been developed for a wide variety of groups, including people involved in making decisions about mental health care provision, those who provide mental health care and psychosocial support, and people who have received or are receiving support for their mental health. The modules can be followed at users’ own pace, and generally take about 16 hours to complete in full.
The course has also been endorsed by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and meets the standard for accredited nursing continuing education points.
References:
- WHO, Mental Health of adolescents, 10.10.2024 available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health
- WHO, UNICEF, Mental health of children and young people Service Guidance, 9.10.20224 available from: https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/379114/9789240100374-eng.pdf?sequence=10
- https://www.unicef.org/thailand/blog/beating-bullies-and-building-confidence-how-one-adolescent-found-mental-health-support-0
- WHO,10.10.2024, Mental Health of adolescents;Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health
- Wasserman D, Cheng Q, Jiang GX. Global suicide rates among young people aged 15-19. World Psychiatry. 2005 Jun;4(2):114-20. PMID: 16633527; PMCID: PMC1414751.
- https://www.place2be.org.uk/
- British Horse Society, Changing Lives Through Horses, https://www.bhs.org.uk/support-us/our-campaigns/changing-lives-through-horses/