From social media feeds to bus depots, messages about the importance of maintaining our physical health are all around us. In contrast, mental health receives far less attention, despite a growing awareness — particularly since COVID-19 — that disorders such as depression, anxiety, and social isolation are very much on the rise.
According to the World Health Organization, nearly one billion people — including 14 percent of the world’s adolescents — are living with a mental disorder. Despite the clear and widespread need, 70-80 percent of adolescents with mental health conditions globally do not have access to needed services. Even when services are available, stigma can be an insurmountable roadblock to accessing them.
We need a seismic change in how we talk about, prioritize, and invest in mental health for young people — and philanthropy can and should play a key role in this shift.
With a range of crises affecting more and more of the world’s population, we cannot afford to keep mental health on the sidelines of a broader conversation about young people’s well-being. Nor can we allow young people, particularly those who are marginalized, to remain excluded from mental health policy decisions that do not adequately represent their needs.
The organization I work with, EMpower, partners with local organizations that support young people who are struggling to thrive. By tuning into young people’s mental health needs, these grantees are promoting well-being, resilience, and life skills that will, in turn, engender healthy and thriving adults.
Years of focused mental health work reveal that early intervention can prevent lapses from becoming a full-blown crisis. Further, centering young people has taught us the importance of their perspectives and experiences in informing and propelling the work.
Our grantee partners embody this approach. For example, the South African Federation of Mental Health piloted an innovative national youth advocacy and advisory forum in which close to 30 young people are advising the Federation’s efforts while being trained to develop mental health advocacy campaigns in their communities.
Participants demonstrated improved skills related to self-advocacy, problem-solving, communication, confidence, teamwork, and leadership. This comprehensive approach to youth leadership works — and is essential to breaking down barriers to accessing mental health care.
EMpower is also training a small but mighty cohort of youth fellows focused on mental health in South Africa. Over 18 months, these fellows will learn the skills needed to become leaders in contributing to South Africa’s mental health strategy, understanding the mental health landscape, and amplifying the voices of South African youth.
What is clear: Young people hold the innate wisdom of their own lived experience, so they should take the lead.
Despite having proven interventions that show us the way forward, a significant funding gap persists to meet the vast need. The tide is starting to turn, and some funders are heeding the call. For example, EMpower is part of a global peer-to-peer network of funders called the Future Mental Health Collective that is daring to envision a world in which the global need for mental health support will be fully met within a generation.
On the heels of a retreat for this collective in Kilkenny, Ireland, in May, I have identified a handful of key considerations for funders with youth-focused strategies or interventions.
We don’t have to start from scratch, just adjust the recipe.
As a fundamental building block for the health and well-being of individuals and communities, mental health touches all our investments and should be integrated into existing programs and services. With a few strategic adjustments, youth development programs can be strengthened by layering approaches that also prioritize improved mental health. For example, a program focused on providing education support can also layer in services to improve the emotional well-being of young people, including access to safe and reliable adults who can teach basic self-regulation tools such as breathing and mindfulness. This in turn would strengthen young people’s attendance and concentration, enabling them to maximize their participation in the program.
The usual top-down approach does not work.
Today’s youth are savvy, engaged, and demanding to be part of the solution to issues that impact them directly. Therefore, we must partner with youth-led and youth-centered organizations so that young people are heard and supported by people who look like them and understand their needs. EMpower is a firm believer in elevating the expertise of local organizations and their nuanced understanding of the communities where they work. We find this approach far more valuable than prescribing the implementation of programs essentially developed by academics in the Global North.
We need to cultivate mental health “first responders.”
Teachers, peer mentors, career counsellors, coaches, and others who have a regular presence in young people’s lives may be the most attuned to small changes — in attitudes, body language, behavior, or even clothing choices — making them ideal candidates to identify concerns early and offer emotional support. By funding organizations to train the facilitators of their child and youth programs to become “mental health first aiders” or “first responders,” we are making a long-term investment in the mental health of people, organizations, and communities. This is particularly important in resource-constrained settings facing a shortage of therapists and other mental health professionals. Young people themselves can also be trained as first responders, hence our focus on the youth fellowship program.
Heeding these considerations is only part of the story. Until a steady drumbeat from trusted development leaders demands that mental health be prioritized, it will remain in the shadows — and our other development priorities will remain unmet. As youth populations grow in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and other regions, it becomes even more critical to invest in young people’s mental health and remove the stigma.
An investment today will pay dividends in the form of young people leading healthy, fulfilling lives — dividends that will benefit individuals and societies for generations to come.
Deborah Diedericks is a senior program officer for South Africa at Empower. Find her on LinkedIn.
