When we were looking for topics for February, we knew, as a niche EPA for Early Years, Children and Young People, we had to acknowledge Children’s Mental Health Week.
This year it takes place from 7th to 13th February 2022, with the theme Growing Together. If you would like to get involved, please click here for further information.
Place2Be launched the first ever Children’s Mental Health Week in 2015 to shine a spotlight on the importance of children and young people’s mental health. Now in its eighth year, it hopes to encourage more people than ever to get involved and spread the word.
Place2Be is a children’s mental health charity that provides counselling and mental health support and training in UK schools, using tried and tested methods backed by research.
Growing Together is about growing emotionally and finding ways to help each other grow. Challenges and setbacks can help us to grow and adapt and trying new things can help us to move beyond our comfort zone into a new realm of possibility and potential. However, emotional growth is often a gradual process that happens over time, and sometimes we might feel a bit ‘stuck’.
Many years ago, mental health was never discussed, people were expected to ‘get over it’ or it was a taboo subject. Even now, if you haven’t had experience, or know someone who has, it’s hard to comprehend. But we are fortunate to live in an era that understands our brains so much more, that more people can speak out and others can learn. And how important is that knowledge and understanding right now, after the impact that the pandemic has had, and will continue to have for many years to come.
There is a campaign #fundthehubs to support 11 – 25-year-olds access support. It is universally agreed that, as with so many things, the earlier the intervention, the more impact it will have. You can find out more at mind.org.uk. According to mind ‘9 in 10 young people (88%) said that loneliness has made their mental health worse during the pandemic’.
This website is very useful if you work with young people – Young Minds (Fighting for young people’s mental health). They have a section for youth workers which includes training, courses and resources.
You can find a detailed report on Unicef.org.uk and the government produced a Research and Analysis report here.
Please email us on contact@sseducationalservices.co.uk if you would like to know more about our Youth Worker End Point Assessment plans.
