Children's Mental Health Week 2024

Annabel Smith, Professional Lead for Social Care in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service and member of the BASW social work in health group, shares some of her thoughts on children’s mental health.
Children's Mental Health Week

Children's Mental Health Week is a mental health awareness week that empowers, equips and gives a voice to all children and young people in the UK and this year’s theme is “My Voice Matters.” 

This makes perfect sense doesn’t it? We all want to be listened to and to feel heard. As social workers we have our professional standards that require us to listen to people and to ensure that they are actively participating in the care they receive. And I’m sure in our individual working environments we have guidance and standards that also require us to ensure those who use our services have their voices heard. 

But are we really always listening? Or if we are honest are we sometimes listening but perhaps not fully? Perhaps we are listening but then having to “fit” young people and their families into the services we are commissioned to provide, or thinking we are listening but only with one ear, perhaps due to the current demand on our services and the pressure we are under, or are we only selectively listening to the bits we want to hear. Lets face it we all have lives too and sometimes these can be pretty demanding. 

What support do we need to ensure we are listening to the voices of those who experience our care? Perhaps it's also about feeling heard ourselves and this can be hard at times of high demand and low capacity. 

It’s interesting that the theme also specifically mentions the word “voice.”  I found myself reflecting that sometimes our children and young people and their families and carers are telling us important things through other methods of communication that are just as important.  Maybe for our young people through drawing, poetry, music, and their behaviour, and maybe for our parents sometimes through their complaints. Sometimes it's easier to hear the things that are being said to us when they don’t present a critique or challenge. But these are equally as important for us to hear. 

So as we highlight Children's Mental Health Week this year maybe it's a chance to ask ourselves some important questions:

  • How are we encouraging our children and young people to share their thoughts and feelings?
  • How much are we listening to all their forms of communication; positive and negative?
  • And equally important, how much do you feel your voice matters and how often do you make use of it? 

Let's use our individual and collective voices loudly this week to advocate on behalf of our children and young people and to encourage them to feel OK to speak out, speak up, and tell us in any other way they chose, how they feel, what they need and how we can help. And while we’re at it, let's ensure that we are really listening when our children and young people are trying to tell us something.