Keep A Mind In Mind

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“10% of children and young people (aged 5-16 years) have a clinically diagnosed mental health problem, yet 70% of children and young adolescents who experience mental health problems have not had appropriat e interventions at a sufficiently early age.” -Children's society, 2008.

Mental illness has increasingly become more prominent over the years. People are becoming more aware about the issue as the media, mental health organisations and patients are speaking up about it. Mental illness is an ever growing problem with different forms of it from anxiety to bipolar, depression to schizophrenia, and the list goes on.

It’s sad to know that people suffer from this everyday and have the feeling that they cannot escape from their thoughts. It’s also sad to know that children as young as 5 years old are starting to suffer from mental illness.

Recently on BBC 1, Panorama showed a documentary called Kids in Crisis. The programme was to enlighten viewers about the seriousness of mental health in children and adolescents. It was quite disturbing to know that parents had been trying to seek help for their children for years but were turned away because some health organisations didn't deem their children ‘sick’ enough to receive treatment. As a result of the lack of help, the condition of the children’s mental state deteriorated quite rapidly. Mental health is not something that you can just brush to the side and think it will go away. You can’t just go to bed, wake up in the morning and find that it has just disappeared. It’s an ongoing issue until the right treatment is received. It’s hard enough for adults to deal with it, but imagine young children and adolescents who can’t fully grasp what is happening to them and why they are feeling this way.

Statistics from theguardian.com shows that:

Three in four mental illnesses start in childhood. 75% of mental illnesses start before a child reaches their 18th birthday, while 50% of mental health problems in adult life (excluding dementia) take root before the age of 15. 75% of young people with a mental problem are not receiving treatment yet, there’s been a rise in the time children are having to wait to receive treatment for complex mental health conditions, and children with depression and anxiety are often not being identified or given help. It can take a decade for many young people to receive help after showing first symptoms. Opportunities to help are often missed until they reach “crisis”, causing children to self-harm, become suicidal, be violent and aggressive or drop out of school.

https://www.theguardian.com/mental-health-research-matters/2017/jan/20/12-statistics-to-get-you-thinking-about-mental-health-in-young-people