Are we coping? (Mental Health Awareness Week)

The Mental Health Foundation are hosting Mental Health Awareness Week from 14th - 20th May. This year's key focus is stress and its deep-rooted association with mental health problems.

It is crucial to start looking at mental health in childhood in order to support healthy development. Take a look at a few key statistics from The Guardian capturing the severity of the mental health crisis for children and young people in the UK. Click here to read the whole article.

• 16 million people in the UK experience a mental illness, with one in four adults experiencing a mental illness at some point each year
• three in four mental illnesses start in childhood - 75% of those start before a child reaches their 18^th birthday, while 50% experienced in adult life take root before the age of 15
• 10% of school children have diagnosable mental illness
• 75% of young people with those illnesses are not receiving treatment
• the average wait for effective treatment is 10 years
. It can take a decade for many young people to receive help after showing first symptoms
• people with severe mental illness die between 10 and 20 years earlier than the general population
• more than half of young people feel embarrassed about mental illness
. 51% of young people believe that anyone their age diagnosed with a mental illness would be embarrassed
• just 6% of UK health research spending goes on mental health
. This is despite mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder affecting one in four of the population.

The Mental Health Foundation state that we can go a long way to tackle mental health illnesses such as anxiety and depression if we put a spotlight on the effect that stress has on us all.

The Thrive Approach and stress management

To read more about the acute impact of stress on both our mind and body, click through to our blog featuring the neuroscience of stress, signs to look out for in ourselves and others, the way that adverse childhood experiences can lead to serious health problems, and our approach to noticing stress, working alongside children, and creating a future sense of resilience to help them to cope in future stressful situations.

Visit the Mental Health Foundation website

There are plenty of wonderful, accessible resources on the Mental Health Foundation website.

What is stress and how can we best manage it? Find several handy tips here.

When we are looking at stress, sometimes we need to be more self aware. Are we causing others to feel stressed out or overwhelmed? Does the stress we feel impact others? Click here to think about your personal stress footprint.

Looking to decorate your staff room or workplace? Print out some brilliant posters here to publicise Mental Health Awareness Week.

Over to you

Reduced anxiety and behavioural incidents. Calmer classrooms filled with engaged leaners. Improved relationships with parents and carers. These are just some of the outcomes reported by settings embedding Thrive’s whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing. Are you ready to join them? Click here to get started.