Children's Mental Health Week, 7-13 February
Children's Mental Health Week was 7th-13th February 2022.
This year's theme of Growing Together encourages children (and adults) to consider how they have grown and how they can help others to grow.
Run by the Charity Place2Be, their website contains a range of free resources. This includes a section for parents and carers containing growth stories and tips for both adults and children, as well as activities including My Changing Shapes - a video helping young people write and draw their achievements.
Explaining this week’s theme, and how parents and carers can help young people, Place2Be said:
"Growing Together is about growing emotionally and finding ways to help each other grow.
"Challenges and setbacks can help us to grow and adapt and trying new things can help us to move beyond our comfort zone into a new realm of possibility and potential.
"However, emotional growth is often a gradual process that happens over time, and sometimes we might feel a bit 'stuck'.
"For Children's Mental Health Week 2022, we encourage children (and adults) to consider how they have grown and how they can help others to grow."
Further help and support
Locally, Hertfordshire Partnership NHS University Foundation Trust (HPFT) works with a number of NHS and voluntary sector organisations to provide a comprehensive Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). They provide support and advice for children and young people to help with their emotional health and wellbeing.
How to access advice and support
CAMHS operates a four-tiered system, with specialist services offered in tiers three and four.
Tier 1 – Getting Advice
This tier provides early intervention and prevention services which are provided through schools and children’s centres, health visitors, school nurses, GPs, Youth Connexions, helplines and websites. Click here for useful website links.
Tier 2 – Getting Help
Tier 2 provides early help and targeted services, such as Step 2 (CAMHS) operated by Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust. For more information, please click here.
Support also comes through community counselling, counselling or mentoring in schools, education psychologists, education support centres, targeted youth support teams, family support and http://www.kooth.com/ free online counselling for 10–25-year-olds.
Tier 3 – Getting more help and risk support
This covers specialist CAMHS, including eating disorder services which are provided by HPFT.
Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT) provides the Positive Behaviour, Autism, Learning Disability and Mental Health Service (PALMS) - a specialist multi-disciplinary approach to children and young people aged 0-19 who have a global learning disability and/or Autistic Spectrum Disorder and their families.
For more information about PALMS, please click here.
Tier 4 - Getting more help and risk support
Services within Tier 4 are for children and young people with the most complex needs and include our Forest House Adolescent Unit.
If you are worried about the mental health of a child or young person, urgent help is available 24 hours a day:
- Call HPFT's freephone 24/7 helpline: 0800 6444 101
- Call NHS 111 and select option 2 for mental health services
