This week is Mental Health Awareness Week – a time to bring the UK together to focus on building stronger mental health. But for many young people, especially in schools, mental health isn’t just a theme for one week – it’s a daily challenge.
Across the UK, schools are sounding the alarm: more young people than ever are arriving in classrooms with heavy emotional loads and complex needs.
Youth Mental Health is in Crisis.
The data is stark. According to the NHS, 1 in 5 children now have a diagnosable mental health condition. The numbers are rising – but schools are not always equipped to respond.
Many students who are struggling don’t ask for help. Instead, they’re labelled:
- “Disruptive” when they lash out
- “Unmotivated” when they switch off
- “Rude” when they can’t cope with adult authority
- “Difficult” when they’re actually in distress
These behaviours often result in detentions, suspensions, or even exclusion from school – outcomes that disproportionately affect young people from underserved communities, global majority backgrounds, and who have English as an additional language.
Yet, punitive responses fail to address the underlying trauma; in fact, they only exacerbate it.
So, How Do We Fix This?
We believe it’s vital to meet young people where they are – not where we wish they were. We ask the questions: What’s underneath this behaviour? What are they trying to tell us? What might they need right now?
At Khulisa, we:
- Run trauma-informed, creative-arts therapeutic group programmes in schools for young people that help them understand the root causes of their behaviour, building resilience, emotion regulation and well-being
- Train teachers in how to create a trauma-informed environment in the classroom, to better support their students
- Support parents and carers to nurture their child’s wellbeing whilst also taking care of their own mental health, to foster stronger connections.
The answer isn’t more rules or stronger punishments. It’s relationships.
It’s adults who are regulated enough to co-regulate young people. It’s schools that see beyond a child’s behaviour. It’s interventions that don’t shame, but support.
This Mental Health Awareness Week, let’s commit to looking beyond the surface. Let’s remember that “bad behaviour” might actually be feelings of overwhelm, fear, or disconnection in disguise. Let’s build systems that care more about healing than control.
Because when we support young people’s mental health, we don’t just improve their wellbeing. We transform their relationships. We reduce exclusions. We fight the youth mental health crisis.
