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3rd – 9th February is Children’s Mental Health Week.

We advocate for young people’s mental health all year round, but this week is a chance to raise awareness about the challenges they might face, share resources and stories and help make children’s mental health everyone’s business.

The theme in 2025 is ‘Know Yourself, Grow Yourself’.

This theme encourages children and young people to self-reflect and explore what self-awareness means to them. By understanding ourselves better, we are able to better tackle what life throws at us. This can mean understanding our coping mechanisms, behavioural patterns and triggers, meaning we can build resilience and cope with difficult situations. It also helps us know when to ask for help and support.

Copy of CMHW advice

Place2Be, which runs Children’s Mental Health Week, has provided information to help support young people to do this sort of self-reflection. They have tips for families, parents and carers, and resources for schools.

 

Leeds Mind’s work with Children and Young People

25% of the people who use our services are under the age of 25.

Youth in Mind is our support for 10 to 25 year olds who are struggling with their mental health because of very difficult, frightening or distressing experiences (also known as trauma). This service has supported more than 350 young people.

The steering group, made up of young people, parents/carers and professionals, won an award for promoting young people’s voices in the decision-making in our work.

Many of our services are working with young people – for example, our Suicide Bereavement Services work with families.

 

We asked the Leeds Mind team what advice they would give their younger selves to know and grow themselves. Here are some of the responses:

“If you feel different, that’s okay. Perhaps you learn differently, behave differently, or look different to others. We are all different. Be kind and patient with yourself. Make your difference your superpower.”

“Asking questions when you don’t understand something can be scary, but it’s a brave thing to do. Not only does it help you learn, but it can also help others who might be struggling too, but are also afraid of looking silly.”

“No matter how you feel, whether you’re sure of how you feel or not, it’s normal. You have every right to feel the way you feel whether it be happy, sad or angry.”

“Don’t worry if you make a mistake. Mistakes do not equal failure. Be kind to yourself. Making mistakes is actually a very important part of learning and becoming an even better version of you.”

You can see more throughout the week on our social media channels, X, Facebook and Instagram.

 

Support for Young People

Here is a list of local and national support for young people.

More info

If you want to learn more about supporting young people in Leeds, Child Friendly Leeds is working on making Leeds a ‘child-friendly’ city. Its 12 wishes capture the views of 80,000 children and young people in the city, learning about their top priorities and issues. Wish number 1 is: “Children and young people know how and where to get support with their mental health and wellbeing if they need it.”