Kindergartens and Schools at the Frontline of Global Mental Health
Global youth mental health is in severe crisis. Robert and Susanne Schuett call for urgent, shared action across education, caregiving, and policymaking worldwide – to support young people where life and learning begin.
As summer continues across much of the world, many children and adolescents, parents, caregivers and education professionals are still enjoying a much-needed break. For now, the new school year feels blissfully out of sight.
At the same time, inside kindergartens and schools, preparations for what lies ahead are already underway – for a good reason, as the return to these learning environments often brings a wave of back-to-school worries for many young people, especially after the holidays. For some, these worries come as the all-too-familiar Monday Blues, a weely struggle we recently devoted a children’s book to. While such feelings are common, they can also point to deeper challenges. Recognising and responding to them early – compassionately and without stigma – is essential to protecting the mental health and wellbeing of young people.
Childhood and adolescence are challenging – not only for young people dealing with developmental tasks, but also for the parents raising them and the teachers educating them. These developmental challenges continue into young adulthood, as the human brain does not fully mature at the age we are allowed to drive, vote, or drink, but closer to 25, when we are allowed to rent a car (as some researchers note, “the rental car companies have it right”).
The first two decades of life are critical periods of development, when most mental disorders first emerge. At this stage, children and adolescents are especially vulnerable to environmental stressors. These environments can harm mental health – or they can be shaped to protect and promote it. Kindergartens and schools have more influence on a child’s development than any institution besides their family. They are at the frontlines.
Today, childhood and adolesence are more challenging than ever for the world’s 1.2 billion young people – and for the parents, caregivers, and professionals supporting them. Many are growing up in contexts of persistent poverty, financial instability, housing and food insecurity, academic pressure, climate anxiety, social discrimination and isolation, violence, armed conflict and war. For a growing number, there are few – if any – realistic prospects for the future, whether in terms of education, employment, or personal safety. These overlapping crises are driving a generational mental health crisis. Suicide has become one of the leading causes of death among young people globally – a deeply troubling measure of just how urgent this crisis has become.
The WHO estimates that up to one in five children and adolescents suffer from developmental, emotional or behavioural problems, and one in eight has a mental disorder. On average, every primary school classroom includes two or three children struggling with mental health issues. Yet most cases go undiagnosed or untreated, often persisting into adulthood with life-altering consequences.
Meanwhile, teachers are experiencing a significant decline in wellbeing, with rising rates of stress and burnout due to growing demands and lack of adequate resources, training and support. This exacerbates teacher shortages and diminishes the appeal of the profession. Coupled with declining mental health and wellbeing of young people, along with deteriorating school performance in recent years, these trends raise serious concern.
When kindergartens and schools become sources of stress and anxiety, they contribute to a destructive cycle that harms individuals and society alike. Untreated mental health conditions in young people can severely impair their educational attainment, reduce employment prospects, and increase reliance on social welfare or risk conflict with the law. The individual and societal costs – disease burden, inequality, instability – are profound.
Global consultations with children and adolescents have shown that school can also be a setting for violence, abuse and extreme academic or social pressure. These pressures often stem not only from rigid school systems but also from rising family expectations and declining parental support. This combination creates chronic stress for many children and adolescents, with possible long-term mental health consequences, including depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide attempts.
Bullying, including cyberbullying, is widespread and deeply damaging. It harms health, undermines academic achievement, and increases the risk of school dropout. Excessive social media use and computer gaming often intensify these problems by exposing young people to online harassment, unrealistic comparisons, addictive behaviours, and constant digital overstimulation. Crucially, children and adolescents remain largely unprotected in this sphere – often navigating digital environments without adequate regulation, supervision, or safeguards.
Yet, despite these risks, many children and adolescents also describe school as positive environment – a source of self-esteem, connection, and support. It is a place to spend time with friends, access emotional resources, experience structrue and predictability, and, in some cases, escape adverse home environments. For those living in unsafe or unstable households, kindergartens and schools can serve as vital safety net, supporting basic emtional, social, and physical needs.
Because children and adolescents spend most of their waking hours in educational settings, kindergartens and schools are ideally placed for prevention, early detection and intervention – not only of mental and social issues but also of physical challenges. They also reach large numbers of young people, including those from underserved communities, who might otherwise fall through the cracks of healthcare and social care systems. This includes screening for issues such as hearing and vision deficits that often manifest as learning difficulties, behavioral and mental issues. Early detection and intervention is effective. It helps children remain in school and stay on track toward their goals. The earlier the intervention, the better the outcomes, and the lower the costs.
Kindergartens and schools play an important role, as “soft entry” points, in helping get help early. School-based mental health services, which embed mental health professionals directly within school communities, reduce access barriers and help children and adolescents, as well as education professionals and parents, get the support they need. This aligns with the “where they are”-approach to youth mental healthcare: preventive and interventive measures that meet those in need in ecologically valid environments, like schools.
Kindergartens and schools are increasingly becoming not just nurturing environments, but frontline support structures for young people’s mental health and wellbeing that fundamentally influence academic, social and economic outcomes across the lifespan.
But educational institutions cannot do this alone. Supporting the mental health of children and adolescents requires a coordinated effort from parents, caregivers, education professionals, communities, employers and governments. The “whole-school approach” – which engages the entire ecosystem around each learner – is essential to building resilience and well-being in and beyond the kindergarten group and classroom. As the saying goes, it takes “a village” to raise a child.
We must strengthen education systems to provide safe, inclusive, and developmentally supportive learning environments – not just for children and adolescents, but also for the educators and caregivers who support them. That requires implementing long-term, sustainable school-based mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) policies and services that are accessible in all contexts, especially where support is currently limited.
Educational institutions must be equipped to increase access to appropriate mental health services. Policies should also address and reduce barriers to delivering school-based care, including challenges related to reimbursement systems, scaling effective treatments, and ensuring equitable access.
Crucially, parents and caregivers must also be empowered and supported in their roles. Parenting is demanding – particularly in times of crisis – and often goes unsupported. Employers have a key role to play in ensuring that parents can be emotionally and physically present in their children’s lives. This means offering paid parental leave, flexible working arrangements, and access to mental health resources for families. These are not luxuries – they are core social infrastructure for raising healthy, resilient children.
Ultimately, it is about fostering belonging and connection. The principle of “attachment before education” reminds us that learning is rooted in relationships built on trust and care. Children grow into strong and resilient adults through these relationships – with parents, educators, and communities.
As Frederick Douglass famously said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults”. Strong children become the foundation of strong families, resilient communities, and more just, healthy societies. That strength begins where children spend their early years: in kindergartens and schools. Global policy must now support them in helping to build that strength – by making mental health and wellbeing a core part of every child’s educational journey into the future. Into our future.
Companion pieces to this post can be read here and here.
Robert Schuett is co-founder and managing partner at STK Powerhouse, a global risk advisory firm. A former Defence civil servant, he also serves as Chairman of the Austrian Political Science Association and is a long-standing Honorary Fellow at Durham University.
Susanne Schuett is a senior executive at a Viennese outpatient mental health clinic. A psychologist by training, she holds the habilitation (venia docendi) in psychiatry from the Medical University of Vienna and serves on the advisory board of STK Powerhouse.
Photo by Raphael Brasileiro
