Children & Youth

This Working Group was established to champion the lived experiences of young people, providing opportunities to amplify youth voices and see the actionable change in local, national and international contexts.

Our Focus

By sharing best practice knowledge to inform efforts related to child and youth mental health and bridging low-middle and high-income countries for greater equity, this working group acts as a platform for the creation of actionable opportunities across the network membership. 

Our work:

• focus on specific issues identified by the group pertaining to child and youth mental health.

• facilitate the sharing of information and knowledge about child and youth mental health organisations, programs and activities.

• facilitate collaboration and coordination between groups who share common interests.

• collaborate on new guidance on youth engagement and establishment of youth leaders in this sector.

Our Work

Our report, Financing Child, Adolescent and Young People's Mental Health, explores the need for greater investment, the current levels of investment, what great investment can achieve, and what needs to be done to increase and improve investment in child, adolescent and young people's mental health.

Our Impact

The Global Mental Health Action Network (GMHAN) is dedicated to elevating youth voices in mental health advocacy and positioning young people as experts within the mental health sector. Led by members of GMHAN’s Children & Youth Working Group, we published the Effective Youth Engagement Guidelines in August 2023. These guidelines are designed to equip national partners with the knowledge and skills to work meaningfully with children and young people who have lived experience of mental health issues, especially when they are accessing support.

Written in collaboration with 80 young people from 22 countries across the globe, all of whom have lived experience of mental health issues, these guidelines outline best practices and provide a true sense of what young people value in their engagement. This resource has been developed for clinicians, policymakers, funders, programme developers, researchers, educators, and anyone involved in working with young people with lived experiences of mental health conditions.

The guidelines have been a valuable resource globally, with significant reach and impact. In 2023, the document was downloaded 519 times and shared with the African Union (AU) office of the Youth Envoy. The AU has used these guidelines to develop a regional Youth Mental Health Toolkit, which has been widely distributed across the African continent and to the AU’s 55 member states. 

Highlighting the importance of this resource, Chido Mpemba, African Union Special Envoy on Youth said: "The African Union Youth Envoy is proud to have integrated the Effective Youth Engagement Guidelines into our Youth Mental Health Toolkit, particularly in informing policy initiatives. These guidelines have been instrumental in ensuring that our policy efforts prioritise meaningful youth participation, empowerment, and inclusivity. By adopting these guidelines, we have witnessed enhanced engagement, increased impact, and more effective advocacy for mental health support among young Africans. We appreciate the Global Mental Health Action Network's valuable resources and look forward to continued collaboration." Dissemination of the AU’s toolkit means guiding principles produced by the Children & Youth Working Group could indirectly benefit up to 650 million young people in the Africa aged 17 and under.

The Public Health Association of New Zealand, and our member Ronan Payinda (who is the Youth Caucus Chair of this Association), have also utilised these guidelines to develop a briefing for the Public Health Communication Centre, New Zealand. The briefing addressed the crisis in youth mental health and explored solutions to support the wellbeing of the country’s 1.6 million youth. Ronan expressed gratitude, stating: “We are grateful to the GMHAN Secretariat and the Children & Youth Working Group for guidance and support. The youth participation guidelines developed by the Global Mental Health Action Network were vital to the international scale of this Briefing.”

This collaborative effort highlights the importance of involving youth as partners in shaping mental health solutions and highlights the significant impact of GMHAN’s resources and advocacy efforts.