The YoungMinds children and young people’s manifesto
Mental health is as important as physical health and needs to be everyone’s business. This manifesto has been created by YoungMinds Very Important Kids panel (VIK) and Healthy Heads group.
We urge all the political parties to implement the manifesto and make it a priority in their election campaigns.
Manifesto main points:
- Stigma still affects us; its about time we were able to talk about how we feel.
- Dealing with problems when we are young; train primary school staff
- Growing up is difficult; support us when changes happen in our lives
- Getting what we need at secondary school; train everyone to understand teenagers problems.
- Waiting lists and assessments just make it harder; make them shorter and provide us with one worker for all our care.
- Some doctors don’t listen to us; they need to understand and support us
- Going to Accident and Emergency can be traumatic; treat us with respect, see beyond our labels
- Some psychiatric units feel like prisons; learn from the best ones
- Someone to speak up for us; we all need advocates
- Lost in the system; don’t forget about us when we are 16 plus
- We’re the experts; start listening to us
To read the manifesto in full offline you can download a pdf version here:
The YoungMinds children and young people’s manifesto (PDF 805KB)