5 Top Mental Health Support Websites for Young People
This pandemic has been hard on everyone and those that struggle with mental health have certainly suffered a lot. But one group that has been under a lot of pressure is young people.
For many, the lockdowns may have actually brought issues to the fore that may not have been there before. Isolation, school pressures as well as all the usual teenage pressures have made a perfect storm for some.
Growing up is tough enough at the best of times but not being able to socialise normally and a growing reliance on online communication has made things a lot worse for many people.
From primary school age right up to late teens and students Covid 19 has been tough so I wanted to pull together a list of the top 5 sites young people can go to for information and support about mental health.
Some are places to get coping tips and find out more about issues and others are more about getting help.
It is really important to state that if you are feeling suicidal or having thoughts about harming yourself or anyone around you please please call the NHS helpline and speak to someone!
NHS – One You
While this isn’t strictly a site it is important to always refer to the NHS where you can. This is a section within a site but it is geared towards young people and has lots of good stuff on it! It has some really good videos covering topics like Self Care and Social Media, Dealing with Change and dealing with unhelpful thoughts. There are also tonnes of numbers and links to other advice and support locations like the Shout 85258 service where you can text 24/7 for support.
Hidden Strength
This is a brand new site and one that may well become a very popular place for young people to find out more about mental well-being and mental health issues. At the moment it’s essentially a place to read loads of really useful articles on everything from addiction to online gaming, to eating disorders and from dealing with panic attacks to understanding depression. In the future, Hidden Strength is going to be launching an app and much more so it’s well worth bookmarking this one!
Young Minds
Young Minds has been around for a while and is a very popular site. It offers information on a wide range of mental health topics and also encourages young people to talk openly about issues. Young Minds is a charity and they do a lot of fundraising work people can get involved in. It is all about giving teens a voice but also has a lot of resources for teachers and adults to help them support young people too.
Stem 4
Stem is another mental health charity, the name comes from the aim of stemming mental health issues at a young age before they become more serious as people get older. There is a lot of info about how to spot the early stages and warning signs of mental health issues which is a really positive angle to take. There are lots of tools to help young people worth through issues as well as 2 apps and a video section too.
Kooth
Essentially Kooth is an online messaging platform but it is more than that in many ways. It offers an anonymous messaging support network for young people where they can talk to counsellors about mental health issues. The counsellors can offer support and advise young people on a range of issues. On top of this, there are also lots of articles written by other young people which is a great way of offering support from people in the same situation. There is also a mental health journal where young people can track their daily feelings and mental health journey.
While it is fair to say you can’t fix a mental health issue by reading an article this kind of information can play a really powerful role in supporting people learning about issues they may have or be developing. In many cases finding out, we are not alone can be a very big deal.
On top of the information, these sites all offer crisis numbers and NHS information as well as many of them actually offering online counselling in various ways too.
Ultimately they are all helping young people to talk about this stuff more, learn about mental well being as well as mental health problems and hopefully help fight the growing mental health crisis we are seeing all around us.
Do you know of any mental health websites which should be added to this list?
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I have heard of some of these but going to look through the others. I have a 16yr old daughter who has autism and also struggles with mental health and anxiety issues and also gender confusion. It is SO hard to get the right support, I feel like 16 is such a hard age too as they don’t fit in a catagory, a lot of places sign off at 16 but then a lot start at 18. It has been a mega long road for us especially as I have bipolar and anxiety too.
Oh gosh that must be so hard for you both. I remember when I was 16 I was discharged as a inpatient and my local CAMHS were like what do we do with a 16 year old, oh we don’t know send her to the adult mental health team and while I have no insight to CAMHS anymore if it’s anything like adults it has only gone downhill since then.
Great list! I haven’t heard of a lot of these but am glad they help out with mental health!
Definitely, we all need more help I think around trying to take care of our mental health.
I’d like to recommend The Mix as well, it offers great support and advice for young people under 25: http://www.themix.org.uk
Thank you – I’ll try and add it into the post when I have some time as well.
It is wonderful when you can see the internet being used for good
Definitely, I think we all need to see some good at times.
This is really good to know. I have heard of Young Minds. Such a lot of support if you know where to look.
It can definitely be hard to know where to turn, especially when in crisis.
I think sometimes social media sites can aid people feeling down. Posters give the illusion everything they do,say & feel is fabulous and it’s not everyone has crap days but never say things like that. I suffered depression when I was a lot younger you think you are the only one but you are not . And depression medication is not addictive now like it used to be. You feel you can never feel good in your life ever again but you do! Believe me get help you won’t regret it.