As we now reach the start of September and the summer begins to come to a close, it means a lot of people will be going back to their place of education, at University, College or School. Whilst there may be those who are looking forward to going back, there also may be people who are feeling the opposite. This could be from the stress of wanting to do as well as possible, struggling to get the grades, or other social issues such as bullying or loneliness.
For a lot of people, education can be a time where they try to fit in as best as possible, and as such find it difficult to be themselves from fear of judgement. As a result, that itself can greatly impact someone’s mental health, or make a mental health problem even worse.
Earlier this year, Mind undertook an inquiry into secondary education and mental health as part of its new ‘Fund the Hubs’ campaign. This inquiry consulted with over 2870 young people, parents/caregivers of young people affected by mental health problems, mental health professionals and school staff across England. Here are their findings;
- Nearly 7 in 10 (68%) young people reported being absent from school due to their mental health.
- Some even reported that their mental health problems were treated as bad behaviour instead of being supported to address the underlying issues.
- One in four school staff (25%) were aware of a student being expelled because of their mental health.
These are just a few of their several published statistics from that inquiry and already the important of the ‘Fund the Hubs’ campaign is being highlighted. So what exactly is this campaign?
The campaign was ran by National Mind to call on the UK government to fund a network of early support groups across England. These hubs would be based around providing support for young people aged 11-25, who will be able to drop in without an appointment or referral. The aim is to provide that vital support when they first need it.
For more information on this, you can find that here -> https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/campaigns/children-and-young-peoples-mental-health/fund-the-hubs/
So what can we do in the mean time?
At Burton and District Mind we have services specifically aimed at young people such as our Young Persons Counselling as well as our work within sixth forms and colleges to provide key support to struggling students.
More information on that can be found here -> https://www.burtonmind.co.uk/young-people-mental-health
Over the next week or so, we will have additional posts across our social media pages to try and provide some helpful mental health tips to those who may be struggling/worried about going back to school.
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