200 children attended Kent County Council's Big Mental Health Conversation exhibit.
Henry Luck reports
Henry Luck reports
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00:00It's a topic that often goes under the radar, but more young people are opening up about it.
00:06To mark World National Health Day, Kent County Council invited pupils and students
00:12to Maidstone's Dettling Showground to show them the importance of emotional well-being
00:18for its third annual big conversation event.
00:21World Mental Health Day was established in 1992 by Richard Hunter,
00:28who was the Deputy Security General of the World Federation of Mental Health.
00:33It has the goal of spreading awareness on the topic of emotional and psychological well-being.
00:40It's very important because I think young people are especially susceptible
00:43to vulnerability around mental health, and especially young men and boys don't
00:47tend to talk about things like this. So to have the ability to all come together
00:50and really be open about how we find our mental health and what we can do to improve it,
00:54it's really useful for students and I think it's a great event for them.
00:57A marketplace with organisers such as MIND were displayed,
01:02alongside therapy pets and mindfulness workshops.
01:06Standing behind me is the pony Taffy, and she's serving as a therapy pony
01:12here at Dettling Showground. Ponies are often used as therapy pets
01:18because of their calming nature.
01:21Supporting Kent County Council is the NHS, who have seen more and more young people
01:27using their services in the past year.
01:30So we are getting more and more children using our NHS services,
01:34so it's really important that we work together with other partners to ensure that we are providing
01:40as many services to as many children as possible.
01:43Kent County Council's also trying to fund a new therapeutic support service
01:48to report the current counselling service for children and young people,
01:53hoping to continue breaking down barriers.
01:56What we're finding is that there are too many young people for us to offer that service
02:00in a very sensible way. They're having to wait, and it's a one-to-one counselling service.
02:04So we're consulting with young people about perhaps offering a slightly different
02:09service, whereby we're looking at group work, therapeutic work,
02:15and there'll still be one-to-one counselling, but a much greater spectrum of mental health support.
02:21Henry Luck for KMTV in Maidstone.