This week is Place2Be’s Children’s Mental Health week. This year’s theme is Let’s Connect.
Let’s Connect is about making meaningful connections for all, during Children’s Mental Health Week – and beyond. People thrive in communities, and this connection is vital for our wellbeing.
When we have healthy connections – to family, friends and others – this can support our mental health and our sense of wellbeing. And when our need for rewarding social connections is not met, we can sometimes feel isolated and lonely – which can have a negative impact on our mental health.
For Children’s Mental Health Week 2023, we’re encouraging people to connect with others in healthy, rewarding and meaningful ways.
Chandni Gill, our Service Manager – Mental Health Services, says:
Children’s mental health can be seen as bad behaviour, attitude, disobedience or just not been taken seriously when they raise issues.
It’s important that we validate and value the way our children are feeling, and offer support and guidance wherever you can. Many times, children are brushed off when they express feelings of depression and low mood with responses similar to “what have you got to be depressed about”.
However, how we deal with these concerns when they are first raised will determine their emotional resilience and response in later life.
Social media and technology’s emergence and increasing capacity is also something to be mindful of. Children and teenagers can spend their entire lives on phones and computers, especially with technology becoming an integral part of their education. Whilst there are many positives with technology, there also come negatives and it’s important to be mindful of the dangerous content there is out there.
A really useful site for parents, carers, and professionals is Young Minds. They have an A-Z guide on many things young people struggle with, and many tips on how to manage these and where to get support.
Chandni manages The Old Vicarage and also the Tuntum Headwize team, which are both services offering mental health support. Click on these links to find out more about each project.
