Youth Mental Health Day 2022

Youth Mental Health Day is on 22^nd September this year.

Stem4 describes Youth Mental Health Day as a day that ‘encourages understanding and discussion of mental health in young people, enabling them to live happy and healthy lives all year round. Each year, the day aims to get young people, and those who support them, talking about how to improve mental health.’

As a mental health service provider in the local area, we believe it was of utmost importance to get involved in this day, raise awareness, and engage with our young people.

This year’s theme is #ConnectMeaningfully. The reason behind this is due to increasing use of digital technologies with our young people, and how this has left many of them feeling socially disconnected.

Stem 4 note that 70% of young people aspire to ‘just be healthy and happy’ and therefore it is important that we acknowledge how our social connections (with family, friends and the community) have been shown to make us happier and physically and mentally healthier.

Inspired by this topic, our Early Intervention team undertook a coproduction activity with a group of young people, to better understand what connecting meaningfully meant to them. 

The aspiration was to offer meaningful connections to our children and young people, and to learn from them directly, to add a richness to the messages that we send out to our communities when encourage meaningful connections from a young person’s perspective.

Emma Train-Sullivan, Hull and East Riding Early Intervention Lead, said:

“We utilised some of the national information and workshops in our engagement with young people “to start the conversation” and, in true young person style, they developed their own workshop, using their own experiences and knowledge, and created a pay it forward model to encourage people to listen and learn.

Their presentation is brilliant and I feel it will get people thinking about what a meaningful connection actually is – ‘don’t only listen to the voice, listen to the smile’.”

Take a look at the presentation here, to see what the young people developed in this session.

Get involved

Follow us on social media @HumberNHSFT to see more of our content that we developed with young people in Hull and the East Riding for Youth Mental Health Day.

Furthermore, we would be delighted if you would take this as an opportunity to speak to the young people in your life about what ‘connecting meaningfully’ means to them. It just might spark an insightful and impactful conversation!

You can also find out more about how to get involved as an adult and as a professional in health and social care or schools, on Stem 4’s website here: https://stem4.org.uk/youthmentalhealthday/

Need support?

Do you or another young person in your life need mental health support?

Take a look at an overview of our services in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire, here: https://www.humber.nhs.uk/contact/get-support.htm