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Children's Mental Health Awareness

May was first declared as Mental Health Awareness Month in 1949. In 2006, Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day was chosen as a special day during this month to focus on the mental health needs of children. Since 2006, May has been a time to acknowledge the importance of children's mental health, show that positive mental health is essential to a child's healthy development from birth, promote positive youth development, resiliency, and recovery, along with the transformation of mental health service delivery for youth, adolescents, and their families.

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) has compiled a list of helpful resources for parents and caregivers, children, mental health providers, child welfare and juvenile justice professionals, healthcare providers, educators and school staff, military families, and policy makers.

A list of external resources related to children's mental health awareness is available here.

NCTSN Resource

NCTSN Bench Cards for the Trauma-Informed Judge

Type: Special Resource

Provides judges with useful questions and guidelines to help make decisions based on the emerging scientific findings in the traumatic stress field. These bench cards assist judges and court-appointed professionals doing mental health assessment of children.

NCTSN Resource

Age-Related Reactions to a Traumatic Event

Type: Fact Sheet

Describes how young children, school-age children, and adolescents react to traumatic events and offers suggestions on how parents and caregivers can help and support them.

NCTSN Resource

Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators

Type: Special Resource

Provides school administrators, teachers, staff, and concerned parents with basic information about working with traumatized children in the school system.

NCTSN Resource

Data At-A-Glance: Synergy: Why Two Can Be Greater than Four or More

Type: Report

Offers providers information about synergy for children who experience trauma. This fact sheet is a summary of important points from a NCTSN Core Data Set publication developed to help providers understand whether certain pairs of trauma and adversity have more additive synergy than others.

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