Our Platfform’s clinical psychologist, Dr Jen Daffin unraveled the undeniable links between poverty and children’s mental health.
“Your postcode is more important to your mental health than your genetic code”
Evidence shows that adverse living conditions including poverty, lack of opportunity and trauma have a huge impact on mental health and learning outcomes, particularly during the first 1,000 days of a child’s life.
Platfform believes that systemic change is needed to address the root causes of children’s and their families adversity, trauma and distress.
Jen highlighted one of Platfform’s preventative, trauma-informed community-led projects as part of the Save the Children Bettws Early Learning Community, and members of Platfform’s young people’s team discussed their Power Up project – a mentally healthy futures project co-created with young people comprising 1:1 coaching, drop-in counselling, training within schools and the community, weekly social groups and more.