FEATURE FOCUS: MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING
How to support young people with their mental health
young people coping with mental health issues. And with the continuing, unprecedented pressures they face, there is a growing need for professionals, parents, and caregivers to recognise the early signs and put mitigation strategies in place where possible.
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ndsleigh currently supports more than one million students with their mental health and wellbeing services across secondary schools, colleges, universities and accommodation providers. Here, Billy FitzJohn, Associate Director of the Education Division at Endsleigh, discusses the importance of providing mental health and wellbeing support for young people in secondary schools, before they move on to the next step in their educational journey, and how to recognise and mitigate early signs of mental health issues.
Childhood and adolescent years can be difficult to navigate and even harder for children and
Many school age children don’t know how to ask for help. They don’t know how to articulate the emotions they might be feeling and because many adults either aren’t attuned to such nuanced approaches, or feel uncomfortable talking about emotions, it’s easy to brush off or invalidate what could be a cry for help. We need to talk about our mental health and not shy away from coming forward with our challenges. Many of the issues still seem to come from adults, mainly because they’re worried they’re going to say the wrong thing and are going to cause offence.
Providing the right environment to open up conversations
It’s a jigsaw with many pieces that need to fit together. Caregivers need to learn to open up conversations with younger people so that talking about mental health doesn’t become a taboo subject. It may not be something that comes naturally, and that’s just as important to address as is access to professional support when it’s needed.
Parents, guardians, and caregivers need to provide the right environment to help empower young people to speak up. Charities like Young
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www.education-today.co.uk
Minds have lots of practical advice and tips on how to encourage children to open up about their feelings, and services such as Endsleigh’s Pupil Assistance Programme provides access to professional support and advice. Endsleigh’s caregiver helpline gives teachers, parents, and guardians who are supporting a child with their mental health, 24/7 access to a qualified counsellor with specialist knowledge and experience of counselling children and young people. So, there’s always someone to turn to for advice and support.
“Normalising how important it is to talk about if you’re sad, or if you’re angry because when you’re young you don’t necessarily understand what anxiety is, but you can feel sad and you can feel angry and you can feel upset - and it’s about opening up those conversations. There is change within the student community. They are more liberated and more empowered to talk about their mental health – we just need caregivers to hear what they’re saying,” said Kayleigh Frost, Head of Operations at Health Assured. Health Assured partners with Endsleigh to provide wellbeing services to secondary schools, universities, and colleges.
Young people who’ve learned the tools they need to cope with pressures, may find it easier to transition from school to university and from university to work life. While the trauma you experience as a young person will not be the same as traumas you may face as an adult, it’s easier to retain information when you’re
September 2024
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