Children experience many different emotions and some of them are accompanied by guilt or shame.If, for example, a teenager falls in love with his best friend’s girlfriend, he may feel ashamed or guilty. By telling him that no matter what he feels we are there for him, he will feel secure enough to talk about those emotions, which in turn will help him to process them effectively, helping his overall mental health.

Approximately one in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. In England, one in six people over the age of 16 report experiencing a common mental health problem (such as anxiety and depression) in any given week. Nearly half of adults self-identify as having a mental health problem with only two thirds of these having been diagnosed by a professional. There is evidence that how people are coping with mental health problems is getting worse, as demonstrated by the increasing number of people who self-harm and/or have suicidal thoughts. It has been established that 50% of mental illness in adult life (excluding dementia) starts before age 15 and 75% by age 18.

We need to eradicate the stigma that still surrounds mental illness. It’s ok not to be ok. It’s ok to struggle and it’s ok to ask for help. Teachers need to be able to deal with mental ill healthamongst their students. They need to be more like Mr Donoghue; students need to be treated as human-beings above all else.

Sally, now 20, believes her mental distress should have been spotted years before she received treatment that helped her. She says she became ill when she first started secondary school. Teachers noticed, describing her as “an odd child”, but in the end it was Sally herself who had to ask her doctor for help and she was 16 and on the edge of suicide before she got any effective treatment. “If the government is serious about improving children’s mental health services it needs to guarantee increased long term funding and place more emphasis on preventing mental health problems from developing.”

Many young people are also university students: approximately one in three 18-year-olds in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – and one in four in Scotland – were placed on degree programmes in 2017. University presents further challenges to personal safety and well-being. More than half (54%) of students aged 18 to 24 report having experienced sexual harassment. There have also been accounts of universities failing to support those who report their experiences. 

As part of our look at mental health issues Teachtalks asked the speaker and author Rachel Kelly for her Top 10 Tips for an Anxious Teenager.