There is a stigma surrounding mental health issues, not just here in the United States, but around the world. There always has been! Today the Huffington Post began their “Young Minds Matter” campaign to raise awareness about mental health in children, and the Dutchess of Cambridge is leading the charge. The former Kate Middleton said in the Huffington Post Wednesday that “she and Prince William wouldn’t hesitate to seek help if they thought their children, George and Charlotte, needed it.”
As a guest editor for the Huffington Post, the Dutchess of Cambridge said in her first blog post for the new series “Young Minds Matter” that she wants to “celebrate the amazing work being done to improve and understand the mental health of young children”. She discussed her charity work and how it led her to realize that unresolved issues in childhood were leading to addiction and mental health problems for many adults. She writes, “What I did not expect was to see that time and time again, the issues that led people to addiction and destructive decision making seemed to almost always stem from unresolved childhood challenges. It became clear to me that many children – even those younger than five – have to deal with complex problems without the emotional resilience, language or confidence to ask for help. And it was also clear that with mental health problems still being such a taboo, many adults are often too afraid to ask for help for the children in their care.”
The new series will explore the issues and work on the mental health of the young child.
I applaud the Huffington Post and the Dutchess of Cambridge for starting this dialogue, and I encourage you to follow and join the discussion. The mental health crisis in the UK mirrors the American crisis, and there is a lot to learn from this ongoing dialogue.
LINKS
Let’s Make a Real Difference for an Entire Generation of Young Children
Duchess of Cambridge raises mental health issues in HuffPost