This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week takes place from 15 to 21 May 2023. The week is run by the Mental Health Foundation, which started it in 2001. The theme for the week this year is anxiety.
The Mental Health Foundation website states: “The week is an ideal time for us all to think about mental health, tackle stigma, and find out how we can create a society that prevents mental health problems from developing and protects our mental well-being.”
Feelings of anxiety are normal in us all, but sometimes they can get out of control and become a mental health problem. Focusing on anxiety for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week will increase people’s awareness and understanding of anxiety by providing information on the things that can help prevent it from becoming a problem.
But we can’t do it without you!
Michelle Wilson, Head of our Children and Young People Health and Wellbeing Service, said: “Children’s Health Scotland is proud of the services we provide to children and young people (CYP) with health conditions. Our Self-Management Skills programmes provide CYP with an opportunity to talk about their worries and make friends with others experiencing similar issues. Living with a health condition can be overwhelming and isolating, and many of the CYP we work with experience anxiety, so the theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is particularly important to us.”
Behind the Bandana
For Mental Health Awareness Week, BBC Children in Need have launched an exciting campaign called “Behind the Bandana”. Pudsey will be temporarily removing his iconic bandana to show that mental health issues can be less visible on the outside, and to encourage conversations that can help.
The last few years have seen an unprecedented rise in children with mental health problems. Covid, then the cost-of-living crisis have increased feelings of anxiety, depression and hopelessness.
75% of children and young people who experience a mental health issue aren’t getting the help they need. But conversations can help.
Serious mental health issues in children can be prevented with early help, which starts with the right conversations between young children and their family, friends and other trusted adults. Because simple conversations can help keep a child’s mental health on track.
