“THIS IS A PROBLEM FOR ALL OF US”
Exclusively for Red, Prime Minister Theresa May explains why it’s time to change our approach to children’s mental health
The statistics speak for themselves. Currently, one in 10 children has a diagnosable mental health condition, while the number of girls saying they’ve self-harmed has more than trebled in recent years. Yet, still, mental illness is a subject that many find hard to talk about. That is something we must change – for left unaddressed, the effects can be devastating.
This was brought home to me, very recently, by a young woman in my constituency who has endured years of suffering. Now 22, Chloe first began having problems when she was a young girl. She turned to her schoolteachers but by their own admission, they simply didn’t know how to cope. Sometimes, when things got too bad, she would have to use one of their offices as a retreat because there was no proper system in place to help her.
Progress has been made since then, but there is more we can do. For example, as part of a wider plan to transform the way we deal with mental health problems at every stage of a person’s life, we will offer mental health training to every secondary school.
I hope that this training will not only help teachers identify children who are suffering, but will also help destigmatise the issue of mental illness.
It’s simply unacceptable that so many people feel they cannot speak out and worse, if they are brave enough to discuss their problems, people don’t know how to respond. If somebody breaks their arm, people will ask them how they are, but with mental health problems, it’s different. It shouldn’t be.
So it’s time to change our approach – time to change the way we view mental illness so that striving to improve mental wellbeing is seen as just as natural and positive as striving to change our physical wellbeing.
That is why I welcome Red magazine’s focus on mental health in this month’s issue and, in particular, their highlighting of the problems children suffer, from self-harm to anxiety and depression.
It is only by recognising the scale of the problem and the unhappiness and misery it brings – not just to those who are suffering but to their family and friends – that we can begin to tackle it. I want to see this problem addressed, not just in our hospitals but in our classrooms and communities, too.
For this is a problem for all of us. We need to face up to that fact and the only way we can do that is to talk about it. Just as Chloe has done.
She now has a job at a local further education college and is determined that she will not let herself be, in her words, a ‘should-have-been’ or a ‘could-have-been’.
But had she received the help she needed all those years ago, she might have been spared some of the pain she has suffered for most of her young life.
“It is only by RECOGNISING the SCALE of the problem we can begin to tackle it”