Mental Health and Wellbeing is a major public health challenge facing our generation.
An increasing number of children and young people are accessing our mental health problems services and we are struggling to manage.
One of our responses to the growing demand is our programme with Renfrewshire Council, which tackles the causes, not just the symptoms of poor mental health with a strong focus on prevention and early intervention.
Barnardo’s conducted a system redesign which results in fewer children and young people in Renfrewshire requiring support for severe, complex or persistent mental health disorders.
The design of the service was determined by the input of children and young people as they were best placed to convey what support they required and they also helped facilitate changes in the system.
During the programme we saw the need for:
- A shift in the understanding of mental health from mental illness to understanding mental wellbeing and the effects of distress in response to life events.
- Building child, family and community resilience to ensure less children and young people require support.
- A shared language being established around mental health based on what makes sense to children and young people and not what works for professionals.
- Opening up conversations as a result of noticing triggering behaviours rather than waiting for issues to be voiced.
- Developing prevention and early intervention to promote good mental health for children and young people.
The programme has since enabled us to provide better, more informed support to young people suffering with mental health problems.
Young person
Find out more about children's mental health issues, and the work we do at Barnardo's to help children and campaign for more mental health support within schools.
