Mental Health in Adolescents and Children: Interventions

Adolescents and mental health disorders are a worldwide problem and it needs imperative attention because they affect and influence the health not just in adolescence but also when they turn adults. It is important for us to raise a generation of mentally healthy individuals as our next generation of leaders, changemakers and citizens. Adolescence brings with it, alterations in social environment, brain, cognition and not to forget hormones, which make the time period sensitive to changes in the way mental health is affected. According to UNICEF, 1 in 7 children and adolescents worldwide are affected by mental disorders, with 50% arising before the age of 14. It is unfortunate that many of these problems are often unrecognised and hence also left untreated or without any intervention.

The Intervention Gap

The field of adolescence mental health has a far way to go. There are many gaps in the field, including the studies conducted and the data collected, as well as the lack of diversity in these studies, which result in many population sets being wiped out from the assessment. The assessments are also very limited and many areas understudied. UNICEF pointed out to research gaps in areas in West and Central Africa. The interventions have been more about treatment than prevention or awareness.

The Right Direction

To combat this epidemic of adolescent mental health problems, there are few wide-ranging steps that can be taken. These include fine-tuning health policies to shine the spotlight on these issues. It is also important to promote amicable environments which help young people make healthy choices. Community should work as a collective in making adolescents feel seen and understood, making them feel secure and assure that their decisions and ideas mean something. Data that provide complete health information across geographies need to be promoted, which should include information on emotional, social and physical development. The most important aspect being ease of access to health and care services which would make it easy for adolescents to reach out in case of need. There are various types of interventions that are being looked into globally. Some of them include:

Social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions

These include school and curriculum-based programmes that focus on emotional and social abilities of a young person. They include developing and enhancing skills of self-management, relationship management, responsible decision making, self-awareness and social awareness through developmentally appropriate programmes.

Positive psychology intervention

Usually delivered through classrooms, these programmes help build positive emotions and relationships as well as improving well-being.

Mindfulness-based intervention

An Eastern philosophy inspired intervention, it trains adolescents to cultivate mindfulness in everyday life and use attention on their present, existing problems and unpleasant emotions in a non-judgemental manner. This usually works alongside other interventions.

Positive youth development intervention

Customised for each individual, this works with personal mentoring and involves engaging adolescents in activities that help from sports, fun activities to leadership programmes. This helps them build confidence and social relationships. It is a prosocial method to ease them into interacting with the world around them more beneficially.

Mental health literacy intervention

Focused on awareness, this is used to detect mental health issues in advance. It also teaches adolescents self-care, how to maintain good mental health, an understanding of the signs of a mental health problem and the treatments available with ease. It helps break stigma and affirms that mental health disorders can be tackled well if addressed in a timely manner.

Digital Mental Health Interventions

It would be unfair for a discourse on interventions to not discuss Digital Mental Health Interventions or DMHIs as they are commonly labelled. DMHIs are powerful tools that can help reach adolescents across social, geographical and economic brackets because of their wide-ranging reach. DMHIs cut through gender, ethnic, race and sexual identity. They can cut down on barriers of stigma, cost, transportation and availability. They are also available easily on instruments such as smartphones, which many adolescents possess. Digital technologies are easily adopted by young people and they find it comfortable, easy to use and prefer it over physical communication. It also provides them a sense of anonymity if they need it, on a case to case basis. DMHIs can serve as the first step to initiating mental health care, as it wipes out the stigma in a considerate manner, keeping it private and providing it in a mode that’s most comfortable to them, connecting with them in digital spaces they prefer. They also have the potential to take it to the last mile, reach the underserved and marginalised youth too, making it a diverse tool of intervention.

Positive Developments

Many education institutions world-wide have adopted various strategies, tools and programmes alongside governmental support to provide for the mental health need of adolescents. WHO-UNICEF’s Helping Adolescents Thrive (HAT) looks at strengthening policies and programmes, with efforts made to promote mental health and prevent mental health conditions, to be proactive rather than reactive. They also work to identify risk behaviour and prevent self-harm. As part of the mhGAP Intervention Guide 2, WHO has also developed a module on Child and Adolescent Mental and Behavioural Disorders which provides evidence-based clinical protocols for the assessment and management of a range of mental health conditions in non-specialised care settings. Across their regional offices, they are working on developing and testing scalable interventions that help address emotional disorders of adolescents.

There is hope and the first step to tackle this mental health epidemic starts from our homes and schools.