MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES AFFECTING OUR CHILDREN

There are so many issues affecting education today examples being:

Pupil Mental Health, Post Covid Recovery, Funding, School Discipline, Teacher Retention, Teacher unrest and even Teacher Mental Health, the list goes on.

Yet there has never been available the support we now have at our fingertips in the form of virtual instant communication by modern technology – unheard of decades ago. We can access charities and groups for advice and information. Each person will have their own priorities and my personal concern is that of the mental health of our children; the future generation.

It is only in recent years that mental health issues have been freely debated in public. Prior to this people “hid” behind their problems with feelings of guilt, being fearful that they were unusual in being the only one with such problems and not realising they were not alone.

The increasing trend in the Mental Health of Children

In a recent survey conducted by the NHS several alarming figures were found:

• 18% of children aged 7 to 16 and 22% of young people aged 17 to 24 had a probable mental disorder.

• 12.5% of 11 to 16 year old social media users reported of being bullied online.

• Those with a probable mental disorder were less likely to report feeling safe online.

Bar Chart showing the increase in the mental health issues of children from 2017 to 2022

Sources of help and advice

The NHS report showed that parents seeked advice from a variety of sources these included in order:

• Education Services e.g. schools

• Health services e.g. local doctor

• Friends or family

• Online or telephone support

The Education services were generally the first port of call followed by the Health Services. Surprisingly not all referred their children to the Health Services. What is important is that if your child has Mental Health problems, seek advice preferably from your doctor.

Note the dramatic increase in the 17 to 19 years age group from 2021 to 2022

Further research has been carried out by a number of institutions and Sir Peter Lampl the founder and chair of the Sutton Trust who carried out a joint research project with University College London stated, with reference to Covid and Mental Health “… the after effects are far from over for our country’s youngsters”

John Harris