What We Do

Many people have ignored the mental health of children. But we know that children have minds of their own - and these days they have a lot on their minds. It isn’t easy for children to grow up with today’s pressures. Most of course cope well enough but there are many whose worries and fears get on top of them and they have trouble getting on with their lives.

YoungMinds campaigns about the importance of children’s mental health; the importance of recognising when a child is troubled and providing adequate support for these children before their problems escalate out of control.

YoungMinds has become increasingly active and influential in lobbying for changes and improvements to services for children and young people. Our policy work focuses on highlighting to the government, the media and decision makers the importance of children’s mental health and through meetings, briefing documents and press releases.

The policy programme is working towards achieving the objectives of our Manifesto launched a few years ago. This has included work on mental health in schools; adolescent services; support to youth justice services and support for parents in their transition to parenthood.

Our national telephone helpline, YoungMinds Parents Information Service, provides information and advice for any adult with concerns about the mental health of a child or young person. The service takes thousands of calls from parents, carers, grandparents and professionals such as teachers and counsellors worried about a particular child or person. Many of these calls are referrals from other helplines such as Parentline Plus and NHS Direct and from adult mental health organisations such as Mind.

YoungMinds Magazine is a subscription based bi-monthly magazine packed with news, analysis, features, reviews, parliamentary coverage and much more. The magazine showcases examples of innovative work and is essential reading for everyone who works with children and young people.

YoungMinds is developing its capacity to undertake research into specific areas related to the mental health of children and young people. Our first study, Whose Crisis?, focused on the state of emergency services for young people and showed that there are considerable gaps in the provision of services. This led on to our second research project, Where Next? Which looked at the views and experiences of young people in six in-patient units in the UK. This study also highlighted the gaps in provision which need to be addresses, along with other issues such as the need for more information for young people and problems with the retention of staff in the units.

Our next project, Minority Voices, is looking into access to mental health services for young people from black and minority ethnic communities.

Increasing numbers of YoungMinds publications are distributed to young people, parents and professionals. Our booklets and leaflets deal with issues such as self-harm, depression and bullying.

We distributed 250,000 publications over the last year compared to 160,000 the year before and have added to our range. New titles include:

Tuning in to our babies – a guide for parents and professionals about the importance of relationships between parents and babies.

The Wise Mouse – a book for young children aged 5-11, which explains what it is like to have a parent or family member who has a mental illness.

Our Consultancy and Training Service continues to grow in its capacity to provide a service – both to the professionals who work with children and to the organisations in which they are conducting work. Projects have included reviews or assessments of mental health services for children and young people and projects aimed at developing comprehensive services in particular areas.

Our Youth Offending Team, Sure Start and Looked After Children networks which focus on highlighting the importance of children and young people’s mental health amongst these groups, have continued to expand and consolidate during the year. We now have email networks too so that we can share information with these groups and network members can communicate with each other.

Young minds in our schools
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What We Do

Young minds in our schools