Children’s Mental Health Week is a date that we look forward to every year. It’s an opportunity for people that surround a child to talk about mental health and what we can do to protect it. It also gives time and space to introduce the mental health concept to a child. To talk about its important role in the way they feel and the emotions they experience.

The theme of Children's Mental Health Week

This year, the theme for Children's Mental Health Week was ‘let’s connect’, which gave us a chance to share about the training we offer. It’s available to anyone that lives or works with a child. We offer the training because we focus on the systems around a child – the responsible adults, the schools or the community groups and volunteers. Training can provide an introductory level of understanding needed to get on a mental health journey with a child and to connect in a different way. By working together, as a community against the youth mental health crisis, we can help our young people to heal.

14-year-old, Joseph - an expert by experience, and also a member of The Voice Forum, recently told Chelmsford Community Radio: "It’s easier for young people to open up to someone they are not familiar with - you have a sense of freedom and less fear of judgment.”

Why is Children’s Mental Health Week important?

Sadly, the news during Children's Mental Health Week was not all as positive as the ‘Shaping Us’ Early Years campaign. Some national headlines reported on the 900,000 hours that children in mental health crisis spent in A&E in England. A fact that goes a long way to show the vital need for services that fill the gap in mental health statutory services.

During the week, the Children’s Commissioner used the awareness week platform to focus on children in care and care leavers. She used the space to draw attention to a specific group of children and to highlight the mental health concerns that are likely to experience because of the complexity and challenges that they face.

There is so much we can do all year round to connect with young people. To give them time, compassion and space – something that our training opportunities highlight.

As an organisation, we are especially grateful for the opportunity during children’s mental health week to talk about the reason that we exist as an organisation.

Blog written by a non-Clinical member of the Kids Inspire team