The past twelve months have been a challenge.  Individuals, families, businesses and governments have had to negotiate the impact of coronavirus and lockdown on so many levels. And with this came the impact on our mental health.  Whether it was hitting a low day due to the relentless slog of lockdown life or additional stress on pre-existing conditions, mental wellbeing impacted us all.  And not just ourselves as adults, but our children too. 

Because they are children, we expect them to be able to brush the anxieties of the adult world away and for adults to take the strain.  But it doesn’t work like this.  Young people saw their schools closed, and a demand on them to cope like mini adults, self-organising their education, whilst their friends and extended family and opportunity to play were all taken away.  They lived with the same news headlines and death toll figures as the rest of us: the uncertainty, the changing boundaries and logic behind the expectations that no one had the
answers to.  They have had to adapt to limited space, competing demands on people’s time, seeing too much of some people and not enough of others.  Restricted, yet still expected to thrive, coping in an adult world, without adult resources.  Children and young people have found themselves under increased pressure and with questions just as much as the rest of us.  Yet, with schools in and out of lockdown and GP services in greater demand than ever, the identification of issues that require intervention and signposting to professional support hasn’t been as clear as it would normally be.

And, truth be told, children’s mental health services were already under strain.  Even with the identification of need, often only called to attention when the child has taken drastic action to release the pressure, access to well-being support can be slow and difficult to navigate.  Budgets and resources factor ahead of actual need. To be sat in front of a GP, your child finally openly admitting to big issues, only to be told that help will be 12 months away, is heart-breaking. Not only do you have to negotiate new complex emotional needs, desperately hoping not to get it wrong, but you also have to do so through a maze of forms and conversations, also desperately hoping not to get it wrong.  Both as child and parent, you have to find a new network of support.

Without having their anxieties addressed in a meaningful way and support available, children are taking drastic action to cope.  Young Minds reports that in the UK an estimated five children in every classroom has a mental health problem.  A quarter of 17-year-old girls have self-harmed in the last year and suicide remain the single biggest killer of boys and young men.  We need to be able to help this generation, not expect them to pull themselves out.  Both they and us need to know where to turn for meaningful support and have to confidence to know that that support is there when its needed, not 12 months down the line.

And that’s why Propertymark is supporting children’s mental health charity Young Minds this year.  Young Minds provides young people with the resources to look after their mental health before it reaches crisis point and empowers adults to be the best support they can be.  They give young people the space and confidence to get their voices heard, which in itself is so important.  Their mission is to ensure that all young people can get the access to mental health support they need, when they need it, no matter what.  And through fundraising activities this year, with your involvement and support, Propertymark aims to help Young Minds achieve just that as now more than ever mental well-being needs to be at the forefront of all the we do.