‘Let’s all talk mental health’ free webinar series launches to help parents navigate teenage mental health issues
The webinar series launches following a spike in mental health difficulties among children and young adults. In 2020, one in six children aged 5 to 16 years were identified as having a probable mental disorder, an increase from one in nine in 2017. [¹]
“Let’s all talk mental health”, by Intuitive Events, launches the first free weekly webinar on Monday May 10th, at 8pm to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week, which takes place from 10th-16th May.
Mental health conditions are major causes of illness and disability among young people:
- Half of all mental health conditions start by the age of 14. [²]
- The likelihood of a probable mental disorder increased with age with a noticeable difference in gender for 17 to 22 year olds; 27.2% of young women and 13.3% of young men were identified as having a probable mental disorder. [¹]
- Worldwide, as many as 20% of children and adolescents experience mental health conditions, for which they do not seek or receive care. [²]
The webinar programmes are aimed at helping the parents, carers and educators of teenagers with mental health challenges to understand the issues, learn how to offer support and find out more about routes to help.
The programmes will be hosted by Sophie Sulehria, BBC journalist and former presenter of BBC Three Counties Radio mental health broadcast ‘Shrinkwrapped’. Alongside her will be resident psychologist, Dr Sarah-Jane Knight who brings over 20 years’ clinical experience, and has been focusing on children and young people (CYP) for the last 10 years. The weekly webinars feature one-to-one interviews between Sophie, Dr Knight and other leading clinicians’, advocates for children, authors and ambassadors in the field to get answers to the questions that can help parents to support young people and their mental health.
Dr Knight comments, “ teenage years are a developmental period which adolescents undergo crucial identity formation and begin to establish the foundations of future adult independence. They tend to be more focused on peers and maybe less so on family. Emotions can be harder to regulate as their brains change and they face a new set of academic and social challenges. A lot of issues are ‘typical’ teen difficulties but it can be hard for parents to distinguish between this and what they may need support with. The “Let’s all talk mental health” team, will offer parents insightful and compassionate representations of teenage mental health issues and hope that we can help change the way that it is seen and talked about”.
Each month will have a different theme and each hour-long weekly webinar will look at different aspects of that theme including ‘a general understanding of teen mental health’, then, ‘teen anxiety’, ‘teen depression’ and ‘keeping safe’. The audience will also have the chance to ask questions anonymously and the session will be recorded and available to watch on-demand on the “Let’s all talk mental health” YouTube channel.
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