Provide better and more mental health and emotional well being services for all young people

‘Mind Matters’ aims to provide, and sufficiently update current mental health services, making them more accessible to young people across the UK without parental consent (which is currently a limit on young people accessing the services).

‘Mind Matters’ also aims to modernize emotional health and wellbeing education, providing accurate education on mental health issues, to reduce stigma, and increase awareness in mental health issues such as self harm, eating disorders, depression and more.

Bullying can be a very big problem for those with mental health issues, and by raising awareness / reducing stigma treatment for mental health issues can be more effective.

Finally, the campaign aims to create, update, and pull together both online and offline mental health resources, so that young people can get the information they need, quickly. These can be resources such as internet websites, telephone helplines, leaflets, drop-ins etc.

How does your campaign have an impact on all young people?

Mind Matters not only impacts those with mental health issues, but it is aimed at friends and family of those with specific issues.

In the UK, 1 in 4 people have a diagnosable mental health issue, 1 in 5 young people aged 11 – 18 self harm, 1 in 5 have depression, 92% of young people with eating disorders stay silent. This is a huge amount of young people that have issues, and a reduced experience of ‘normal’ life.

Mind Matters can help to improve the mental health of these 25% of young people, their friends, and family giving all young people a better life. The campaign also satisfies some outcomes of the Every Child Matters framework (Stay Safe, Enjoy and Achieve, Be Healthy). Obviously, the campaign cannot impact ALL young people, no campaign can, however through the strong aims of the campaign mentioned above, it can and will benefit millions of young people across the UK.

What would be the ultimate goal of this campaign?

The ultimate goal of the ‘Mind Matters’ campaign is to achieve the goals of the campaign, whilst involving everybody possible. Ultimately all young people would get quick, professional access to mental health services, of a consistent impeccable standard nation-wide. They would also be able to undergo treatment without fear of bullying from peers, and easily access ready available resources to aid treatment.

What challenges do you expect to face if this was to become a national campaign?

Like all campaigns, ‘Mind Matters’ does have some weaknesses; however they can be easily overcome or worked around. Firstly, while the aims of the campaign are simple, they will take a lot of work to achieve. For example assessing services and improving them would take time to meet with many professionals in the area. It may undergo criticism for encouraging access to mental health services without direct parental consent, and like many UK Youth Parliament campaigns, we are not experts in the area of Mental Health, therefore all quotes, claims and resources have to be backed up by professionals.