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From Prince Harry's 20 year fight with mental health, Lady Gaga's PTSD, to J.K. Rowling's battle with depression, there are no shortage of high-profile figures raising awareness of mental health illnesses. So why is there is a shortage of effective solutions to help the growing number of children suffering with depression?

Coming to terms with the loss of a parent at the age of 12 is not something many of us can relate to. Having to cope with such grief in the public eye is simply unimaginable. So how did the Prince cope with the death of his mum, the Princess of Wales? The simple answer is, he didn't. In a very candid interview about his own struggles with mental health, the modern young royal spoke openly about how Diana's death affected his mental wellbeing from childhood. 

Recent studies and aging statistics show us children’s mental well-being needs to be given careful consideration and attention; charities with high profile backing are bringing the subject to the mainstream media.  Despite this issue in a technically driven world, no new solutions have been available to support children, until now.

Last August, Ofsted updated The Common Inspection Framework to reflect changes made to ‘keeping children safe in education’. Schools are now to be judged on the effectiveness of their safeguarding practices and will need to demonstrate that they are meeting their statutory responsibilities. However, to boil it down, perhaps rather flippantly, could Ofsted’s policies and procedures could be likened to having the emergency services on standby, but without the actual 999 end-service? Our Creative Director wonders if the changes truly consider the children who actually need safeguarding?

Nobody likes to experience failure, but it is one of life’s inevitabilities. Everyone has experienced it at some point, but it’s how you deal with it that really matters. Children in particular are often shielded from failure; with the best of intentions in mind, but this doesn’t create the skills they will need in life to cope with failure when it rears its ugly head.

Halloween can conjure up many images. For some it is a fun time characterised by copious amounts of sugar-filled sweets and silly costumes. However, clearly Halloween has a darker side. For parents and teachers though the scariest thing that won’t be seen this Halloween is the truly shocking state of children’s mental wellbeing. But let’s scrutinise Halloween for a moment, ghosts and clowns are usually creepy but Halloween makes them acceptable. Mental health and fears should be treated in the same way.

World Mental Health Day started in 1992 but in 24 years, has much really changed? To me it seems that over all this time very few new ways of tackling the rising number of children with mental health issues have been implemented, which means the problem has spiralled during that time. As Albert Einstein once said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. A child’s mental health problems will not come to an end like its awareness day - quite the opposite. Could technology provide a viable solution?

We must begin teaching young people how to use IT in a positive manner which will not only aid their learning process, but also teach them how to use devices safely and even manage their own wellbeing.

A new school year brings many worries for any child; new classes, new subjects, new teachers, new pressures from peers and perhaps in some cases, even a whole new school. On top of all these worries, what if the child also has to go back and face the bullies they’ve done so well to avoid over the last six weeks? For some children, the prospect of getting back to school and reconnecting with friends is softening the blow of the countdown, for others, the thought of returning is simply unbearable. 

As many as 1 in 6 young people in the UK will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. Surely, we should be making every effort to educate children about the issues surrounding mental health while they are young, in order to avoid a lack of understanding in later life. Is the fact that this isn’t happening due to the stigma around mental health issues as a whole?