Brian Robinson, No Panic youth services
As time goes by, it seems to be getting more and more difficult for our young people to navigate the world they live in. Social media now seems to be dominating and we all know how much negativity and pressure that can involve. School curriculums have become more demanding; classrooms seem to be getting fuller and fuller; and SATs and exams are never far away. So we really have come a long way from the 3Rs “reading-riting-and rithmatic”.
As time goes by, our young people also have to manage the hormonal disruption caused by growth spurts and that awkward transition from childhood to adulthood. And if that wasn’t enough, many of the young people we speak with have complicating conditions like Autism and ADHD.
It is no surprise then, that as time has gone by, the mental health of young people has suffered significantly; finding the resources to help those in need has become far more difficult; and parents are often struggling and in desperate need of help. This is why at No Panic we see helping the young as a priority.
But it is also true, that as time has gone by, our understanding of anxiety disorders has developed to a high level of sophistication and now covers a broad area of understanding. We now know that avoiding unnecessary stress makes perfect sense; that emotions should better reflect the reality of the situations we face; that our thoughts should be healthy working for us and not against us; and that our behaviours can have a dramatic effect on the way we feel.
Fortunately, tried and tested therapies now exist to help deal with these issues and our youth mentors have years of experience helping those with anxiety disorders. Along with that, we do our best to offer help as soon as possible.
The following is an example of the feedback we receive from our youth mentoring programme:
Hello
From my point of view, my son went from vomiting, shaking and hyperventilating every morning before getting on the bus to school and us being called to the school (often to pick him up for panic attacks) multiple times a week and him missing lots of lessons. In the six weeks since talking to Brian he has managed two weeks of going into school as normal, having no panic attacks and missing no lessons.
So from his parents it has been amazing, while we know it’s not totally over, we thought it would be a long haul to get anywhere near this.
If you feel we can help a young person in your life then please email youth@nopanic.org.uk or visit our Youth Hub.
