Children’s Mental Health Week – reflections, progress and next steps from a 10+ year campaign. 

Angel Strachan is Place2Be's Policy and Public Affairs Manager. She has several years experience working in public affairs across a range of charity sector campaigns.

In 2015 Place2Be founded Children’s Mental Health Week to boost awareness of children’s mental health difficulties – a topic which at that time had little public or political attention.  But many young people across the country were really struggling. In 2017, 1 in 8 5–19-year-olds had at least 1 “mental disorder”, up from around 1 in 10 in 1999. The biggest rise was in emotional disorders, such as anxiety or depression. Now, it is 1 in 5 who have a probable mental health condition. 

For thirty years, Place2Be has addressed this by providing expert, embedded services in schools. Through a “whole school approach”, Place2Be gives everyone the confidence and understanding to improve children’s mental health.  This creates a world where children feel nurtured, valued and supported – building the protective factors against poor mental health in the future. 

Since Children’s Mental Health Week began, policies to improve mental health support have been nudged forward by Governments.  The Labour Party was elected on a manifesto commitment to give every school a specialist mental health professional. In Government they’ve introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and a new Mental Health Bill.  But the data shows that more still needs to be done. Place2Be works with over 500 schools each year and sees thousands of pupils who are struggling; not only with mental health conditions, but with attendance, behaviour, attainment, bullying and exclusions.  A child’s experience at school can have long-term effects on their health, career and relationships.

Through the Children’s Mental Health Week theme of Know Yourself, Grow Yourself, we wanted to help every child recognise their strengths, difficulties and skills. Through this, children gain self-awareness, confidence and resilience. During the week, we saw hundreds of thousands of children, parents, carers and teachers taking part in our activities, giving a real focus to the issue. But of course, Children’s Mental Health Week is only one week of the year. For the other 51 we need strong protections in place. 

Since the election, children’s mental health and wellbeing has been mentioned over 200 times in Parliament, with hundreds more Written Parliamentary Questions on the topic. It is clear that the dial on mental health awareness is shifting: and with 335 new MPs elected to Parliament, we wanted to work with them to showcase solutions.  So we held an event to do just this. We invited primary school pupils to write messages of support to attendees, and MPs shared their own tips and positivity back. I was amazed at the thoughtful, kind words MPs exchanged: a reminder of the impact positivity has on someone’s day.  Students also spoke at the event about their own experience at school, and how the Government could improve their mental health. It was incredibly powerful to hear directly from young people, and it was clearly the standout moment of the session. Engaging and embracing lived experience should be a vital part of any charity’s advocacy.  The response to the event was amazing. Around 50 Parliamentarians came and heard the importance of a whole school approach to mental health. Many more shared their support on social media and across their own networks. 

I was once in a meeting where an official audibly sighed when I mentioned ‘another awareness week’. But it is evident that we still need to push for children’s mental health issues to be taken seriously.  It may not be helpful for public affairs professionals to always focus on the crisis. Yes, presenting evidence-based solutions is key. But while the public purse remains tight, and while children are still struggling, we need to keep this issue high on the political agenda. Children’s Mental Health Week helps us to shine a spotlight and amplify young people’s voices in a world that tries to push them down. Yes, “another awareness week” is needed to keep the pressure on the Government to fulfil their promises. Because effective policymaking is led by evidence and driven by passionate advocacy.