Framing children’s mental health

We worked with FrameWorks UK, alongside families and our sector advisory board, to develop evidence-based, tested framing principles for communicating about children’s mental health.

Key information

• Partner: FrameWorks UK
• Amount: £148,000 (including VAT)
• Duration: 18 months
• Programme: Children’s mental health

Background

We have learned from our partners and the families they support that stigma continues to shape both children’s experiences of mental health and wider social injustices such as poverty and racism.

Academic research, media narratives, the language used by health and social care professionals, and the positions taken by many policymakers can frame children’s mental health as primarily an individual issue. This can place responsibility, and blame, on children and their families, rather than drawing attention to the wider conditions that affect children’s mental health.

The way an issue is framed also influences the solutions that are prioritised and funded. For example, it can lead to a focus on educating parents rather than addressing the distress caused by poverty, or on managing crises rather than preventing them.

Aim of the partnership

Experts by profession and by experience understand that narratives have consequences. The way we currently talk about children’s mental health can mean that:

• children experiencing mental health challenges, and their families, face stigma;
• as a society, we prioritise solutions that may be ineffective or even harmful; and
• we do not invest enough time, money and other resources in the support, systems, policies and practices that could improve children’s mental health.

This partnership was a first step towards changing how we talk about children’s mental health, particularly by shining a light on wider influences on children’s mental health, including poverty and racism.

The partnership produced a research briefing, How do people think about children’s mental health?; and a practical toolkit, How to talk about children’s mental health, to help organisations across the sector communicate differently about children’s mental health.

In the longer term, we want this work to build public understanding and help create the political will and space for action to address the wider causes of children’s distress.

“When people think about children’s mental health, they think primarily about mental health problems, and what support could be put in place to help children who are struggling. The factors driving poor mental health in our children, and how we could work upstream to prevent them, are too often missing from view.

This is a challenge for communicators because it makes it harder for people to see how good mental health can be created, and harder to build support for the action needed to address the building blocks of mental health – things like decent homes and schools. This is why we need a new story which increases understanding of the factors that can lead to poor mental health in children and builds public support for action to address them.

This project enabled us to make initial, evidence-based recommendations for a new story – leveraging the opportunities and navigating the challenges in public thinking. A story that can build understanding of the factors shaping children’s mental health and build support for action that can improve mental health for all children.” – Kate Stanley, Executive Director of FrameWorks UK