Children’s mental health and climate change and disasters

The words we use make a difference. Research shows that child mental health experts and practitioners working with children, parents and families have different understandings about children’s mental health. How we communicate our messages is key to bridging this gap.

In 2021, we partnered with the FrameWorks Institute to create the Reframing Children’s Mental Health toolkit. This toolkit was designed to help Australia’s child mental health experts and advocates communicate in ways that expand support for large-scale policy changes that improve children’s outcomes.

Now, we’ve come together again to create the Children’s mental health and climate change and disasters mini toolkit. This toolkit builds on our original framework, providing specific guidance and recommendations for communicating about the relationship between climate change, disasters and the mental health of children and families.

As reported by UNICEF, children today will experience three times as many climate disasters as their grandparents. Effective, powerful communication is essential to mitigate the impacts of these disasters (and climate change more broadly) on children’s mental health, development and overall wellbeing.