Only 6% of young people say they don’t feel anxious. Let that land.
May 12, 2025Posted by:
If you support young people in any capacity, what are you doing differently this Mental Health Awareness week?
A Snapshot We Can’t Ignore
Mental Health Awareness Week invites reflection, but what if we stopped reflecting and started paying closer attention?
The 2024 Youth Voice Census from Youth Employment UK, didn’t reveal anything wildly new. That’s the most sobering part. The patterns are familiar. The numbers are growing. And still, the gap between what young people say and what actually changes remains stubbornly wide.
This article highlights just a few signals we can no longer afford to treat as background noise. If you work in education, employability, mental health, policy or even if you just care, you’ll want to read what’s below.
Anxiety Isn’t Just a Phase, It’s a Warning Sign
Only 6% of young people in the UK say they don’t feel anxious. The rest? They live with it daily.
Mental health isn’t a side issue for this generation, it’s the central one. But they’re not just telling us that through rising clinical referrals or school absence rates. They’re saying it directly.
The 2024 Youth Voice Census from gives us those voices. Unfiltered. And unmistakable in their message: the systems meant to support them are either missing or not working.
One in four young people can't access the mental health services they need. Nearly half of those in education don’t feel safe at school. When everyday life feels like a threat, planning a future becomes impossible.
Let's stop calling anxiety “a phase.” That language lets the system off the hook.
Money Isn’t Just Tight, It’s a Lock on Opportunity
72% of university students report struggling financially. This isn’t budgeting. It’s barrier after barrier:
- Travel that’s too expensive
- Internships that pay nothing
- Jobs that don’t align with class timetables or safe transport hours
- Financial pressure is more than stress, it’s exclusion in disguise.
Even apprenticeships, often marketed as a fairer path, are out of reach if the cost of getting there outweighs the income. Without wraparound support, the “choices” available to young people are often just illusions.
Subsidised transport, living grants, and guaranteed paid placements should be standard.
Safety and Discrimination: The Quiet Crisis No One’s Talking About
51% of young people don’t feel safe where they live. That’s not just an isolated stat, it’s a 10% drop from last year. And it cuts deeper for ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ youth, and young people with additional needs.
Bullying, discrimination, and harassment are frequent and normalised. That kind of normal has consequences. It shapes who speaks up, who shows up, and who stays in education or training long enough to benefit from it.
This isn’t just about creating “safe spaces.” It’s about reshaping the systems that currently allow harm to go unchallenged.
Don’t rely on generic wellbeing posters. This is about practice, not performance.
The Real Question: Are We Even Listening?
Mental Health Awareness Week is full of good intentions. But good intentions won’t fix unsafe schools, broken funding systems, or the sheer exhaustion of trying to succeed while unsupported.
So here’s what we can do. And what we are doing.
At PeoplePlus, we don’t just read reports. We respond to them.
The 2024 Youth Voice Census made one thing unmistakable: anxiety, financial stress, and unsafe environments are shaping the lives and limiting the futures of too many young people.
So here’s what we’re doing:
- Bringing mental health into our training delivery, with practical tools to spot the signs early
- Embedding inclusive practice in every LearningPlus course, from safeguarding to communication
- Working with employers through the Social Recruitment Framework (SRF) to remove barriers and simplify access to jobs, especially for those furthest from opportunity
- Making sure our employability programmes support the whole person, not just the CV
But to make the right decisions next, we need clear signals.
That’s why we’re backing the 2025 Youth Voice Census.
If you work with or support young people aged 11 to 30 🗣 Encourage them to take part. 📊 The more we know, the more we can do.
Because real change starts by listening, then doing.
May 12, 2025Posted by:
