Understanding Youth Mental Health and Safe Space: “This is My Space”

Dear Listeners,

Children's Mental Health Week was observed February 9–15. This observance emphasizes the importance of improving children's' mental wellbeing by ensuring that they feel safe and included. It focuses on the empowerment of young people by fostering a sense of belonging in community spaces. This year's theme is "This is My Place" which was initiated by an organization called Place2Be. Place2Be emphasizes that belonging plays a vital role in our mental health and wellbeing and knowing where we belong and feeling a part of our environment is a basic human need. Place2Be indicates that ultimately belonging can have a powerful and long-lasting impact on many aspects of life including mental and physical health. We know that health is not merely the absence of disease but encompasses physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. To this end, it is important that we remember to look at all part of health that contribute to the wellbeing of individual in our society, including children. Bermuda, we have the unique opportunity to use this observance to evaluate whether we are creating safe and inclusive spaces for the youth of Bermuda. We have the unique opportunity to listen to the youth around us and meet them where their needs are. Just as you want to belong, so do our youth. 

This episode of Bermuda Health-Abets, a podcast where we discuss everything from A to Z on healthy living, is dubbed Understanding Youth Mental Health and Safe Space: “This is My Space”. #EmpoweringInformingandMotivating Bermuda residents to live well.

Our guest this episode is Jah-nai Smith, Educational Therapy, Department of Education. During this episode Mr. Smith talks from a lived experience an professional perspective. He talks about what feeling safe meant to him as a child, when and where he felt safe to share emotions, the places he felt safe in, the role that friends and peer played in having a sense of safety, how cultural and family expectations influenced how safe he felt to talk about his mental health, what he would advise adults working with children today to do to create emotional safe environments, and more. As you tune into this deeply personal but also informative episode, think about what made you feel mentally and emotionally safe or unsafe in environments and how this can inform what you do with children and youth around you. 

If you have a question you need answered or a topic you would like to hear on Bermuda Health-Abets email healthpromotion@gov.bm. To listen to upcoming segments of Bermuda Health-Abets you can find us here on Facebook , on our YouTube Chanel @DepartmentofHealthBermuda Like and subscribe to the page, on Apple Podcast, or Spotify Podcast.

Empowering, Informing  and Motivating Bermuda Residents to Live Well