Start 'Growing Together' with Children's Mental Health Week 2022

Start ‘Growing Together’ with Children’s Mental Health Week, 2022

How it comes around so quickly every year we’ll never know, but on 7-13 February Children’s Mental Health Week is once again taking place.

This year’s theme is a fantastic one – Growing Together – which Place2Be hopes will encourage children (and adults) to consider how they have grown, and how they can help others to grow too.

‘Growing Together’ is about growing emotionally and looking at the ways in which we do that. And let us tell you they are vast and varied. Challenges and setbacks for example can help us to grow and adapt by trying new things. It’s this step, moving beyond the comfort zone into new realms of possibility and potential.  That said, we must remember that emotional growth is often a gradual process that happens over time, which sometimes may leave us feeling a little bit, well, stuck.

Working in so many schools across the region, and the rest of the UK, the issues we see in children and young people of all ages really resonated with Place2Be’s current statistics – 1 in 6 children and young people have a diagnosable mental health problem, and many more struggle with challenges from bullying to bereavement. The issues we’re dealing with currently range from disordered eating and anxiety to stress.

Which is why campaigns like Children’s Mental Health Week are so important. It was actually an initiative founded by Place2Be (a children’s mental health charity that provides counselling and mental health support and training in UK schools), in 2015 2015 to shine a spotlight on the importance of children and young people’s mental health.

So if you, like us and Play2Be, believe that children should not have to face mental health problems alone, there are plenty of free resources – for you at home, and at school through online lessons, learning and fun – to support Children’s Mental Health Week.

You can:

• Listen to the Place2Be growth stories – a series of exclusive interviews with presenter and Place2Be Ambassador Josh Smith, talking with familiar faces from the world of TV, music and sport who share their growth stories.
• Dress to Express – and raise some funds for Place2Be by dressing to express yourself and how you feel.
• Tap into the free primary and secondary school resources and get your whole school involved.