DAK boss Andreas Storm welcomes the start of the mental health coaches
13.09.2023 17:16
Depression, anxiety and eating disorders – in order to counter the increasing psychological stress on children and young people, the “Mental Health Coaches” project starts this Wednesday, September 13th. Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus gave the starting signal at a Berlin school. The coaches will be deployed at around a hundred more schools across the country. They provide preventive offers on the subject of mental health and provide information about in-depth help and advice.
The CEO of DAK-Gesundheit, Andreas Storm, welcomes the start of the “Mental Health Coaches” project and sees it as a signal to do even more for the mental health of children and young people.
Prevention offensive urgently required
“There is a threat of a mental health pandemic among children and young people. That's why we urgently need a prevention offensive. The mental health coaches are an important signal for more commitment to child and adolescent health,” says DAK CEO Andreas Storm. “It is right to initially use them specifically at schools whose catchment area has a particularly large number of socially disadvantaged families. If the project is successful, the offer should be expanded – the demand is much higher.”
Socially disadvantaged children and young people are particularly affected
Storm bases his claim on data from DAK-Gesundheit that was published in June. Accordingly, girls and children from socially disadvantaged families are particularly affected by psychological suffering. In 2022, a third more teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 17 were treated in clinics for an anxiety disorder than in the pre-Corona year of 2019. This was a new high. The number of treatments for eating disorders and depression also increased significantly. Socially disadvantaged school children fare significantly worse than their peers from well-off families. They feel lonely more often and are more likely to have pain, depressive symptoms or sleep problems.
Last year, the Federal Ministries of Health and Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth set up an Interministerial Working Group (IMA) “Health effects on children and young people due to Corona”. Storm was a member of the IMA and brought the findings from the DAK-Gesundheit studies into the discussions. In their final report in February 2023, the ministries stated, among other things, that they would introduce mental health coaches in selected schools who would take preventative measures to strengthen the mental resilience of school children and other health aspects.