Eliza’s searingly-honest film about teenage mental health and how the right help is hard to find

With Eliza Gardner, teenage mental health campaigner

Children's Mental Health Week gives rise to grimmer statistics every year and of course, the pandemic has had a significant hand in that.

The Government has tried to put a positive spin on things claiming the newly-published State of the Nation report, "shows an improving picture in their recovery from the pandemic." But when you drill down into the report itself, you can see that it's only a tiny improvement, and only in some areas. Children with SEND, as ever fall way behind.

Although the Government are putting money into mental health initiatives in schools, a new study from youth-led community organisation Conscious Youth has shown that a massive 83% of children want positive mental health to be explicitly taught. We must listen and act on this.

Today, I'd like to introduce you to my 17-year-old niece, Eliza Gardner, who has created this searingly-honest, excellent, short film about her and her friends' experiences with mental health before, during and after the pandemic. We, and Eliza, would love you to watch, discuss, and share her film that starkly illustrates how difficult it is for young people to get the right therapy (not just anti-depressants) they need to recover, thrive and have the positive future they deserve. This is also a vital film for school pastoral teams and mental health leads to watch, to see an honest response from the young person's perspective. It also includes tips from teenagers themselves to help keep going -- because you are needed and truly loved.

Eliza: Teenagers are really suffering with their mental health and the right help is hard to find

Hi everyone, my name is Eliza, I’m 17 and the creator of the film below. I was 15 years old when I first started having issues with my mental health. Two years later not much has changed. If anything, it’s worse. I was also a sort of ‘party girl’ for a bit and when I was doing that I met a lot of teenagers drinking and smoking to deal with mental health issues to find a way to cope.

While I’ve been going through my journey, I’ve had many moments of reflection about myself and the things that went wrong. One of the factors I kept coming back to is the neglect from mental health services throughout. This was also something many of my friends who were also within CAMHS mentioned, in fact, one person told me he was discharged from CAMHS despite having ADHD and clearly having severe mental health problems. He lost his support and many others don’t even get it until it’s too late.

So I concluded that things really need to change. The government's interest in looking after teenagers and young people seems mainly to be blaming them for rising Covid cases, not protecting their mental health which we can see through figures is often very poor. It is a crisis and one that needs to be solved before more young people suffer or try to take their lives.

We need enough people to truly see and hear from real young people the extent of the pain they are feeling and the suffering they are dragging themselves through every day. We need people to get angry and the government to see the mess they’ve made.

If you'd like to donate to Eliza's fundraiser for Mind you can do so here

Also read:

• Let’s rename bullying for what it is: abuse
• Dying to be seen: Why is it so hard to get help from CAMHS? By Carrie Grant MBE
• More parents seeking children’s mental health support in pandemic, with growing pessimism over support delays
• Therapy resources for families of children with additional needs
• More than one in three disabled pupils experience bullying in mainstream school, plus other concerning SEND stats
• How is the coronavirus lockdown affecting the mental health of children with SEND?
• Review: Starving the Depression Gremlin – a CBT workbook
• For our disabled children, being brave is a daily necessity
• #WMHD: Preventing suicide in young people
• Navigating adult mental health services as an autistic young person
• SEND children are being “traumatised” by not getting the help they need in schools
• How can children be traumatised just by going to school?
• It’s NOT your fault: An autistic teen’s comprehensive guide to surviving being bullied

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Tania Tirraoro

Founder, Co-Director at Special Needs Jungle

Founder of Special Needs Jungle. (She/Her) Parent of two young adults with autism. New grandma. Tania, who is autistic, is a leading SEND advisor, working with the Special Education Consortium, Ofsted, and Whole School SEND. She is also an Advisory Board member of the Royal Holloway, University of London Centre of Gene and Cell Therapy and an Editorial Board member of Springer Nature Gene Therapy journal.
Tania is an experienced broadcast and print journalist & author. She also runs a PR, web & social media consultancy, SocialOro Media.
Tania is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.

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