Youth Mental Health Day 2025: Share Support

Youth Mental Health Day 2025 raises awareness of these issues, encourages positive action, and highlights ways young people can support each other. This year’s theme, Share Support, focuses on peer connection, understanding and access to evidence-based mental health resources.

To mark the day, we spoke with Victoria (pictured), an ambassador for Shared Lives Plus’ care leavers programme. Shared Lives Plus is working with 37 schemes across the UK to expand Shared Lives as a positive option for care leavers, especially those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Through our programme, care-experienced young people are matched with approved Shared Lives carers who provide stable, supportive homes. Carers help young people build independence, maintain important relationships, and access education, employment, or training. The programme is co-designed with young people, ensuring their voices shape how care and support are delivered.

Victoria actively manages her own mental health through physical exercise and hobbies. “I like physical exercise like rowing, cycling, climbing, swimming. I do musical theatre classes as well which always make me feel excited and happy,” she says. When she needs to calm down or reduce stress, she has a few strategies: “Audio books, listening to music, getting out with dogs. A hug always calms me too.”

Her hobbies outside of ambassador work, such as Girlguiding and visiting Lottie’s Yard, a local stable, provide routine and enjoyment. “The horses at Lottie’s Yard make me feel relaxed. I love getting on with the jobs, like mucking out, walking the ponies around, grooming and cleaning the field. I also like the routine of going to Rainbows every week. Being around the children and the leaders and all the activities we do with the children is fun. I do the energetic bits the other leaders aren’t so keen on!”

Victoria highlights the difference peer support and her Shared Lives arrangement have made in her life. “When I feel stressed I can talk to my friends. When I have had panic attacks, my friends have stayed with me, supported me, got me a drink and made calls to get me the right help.” She also describes how her Shared Lives household makes her feel: “In Shared Lives I feel wanted and my carer wants to be with me. I can talk about anything and everything with my Shared Lives family and friends.”

For young people leaving care, Victoria offers practical advice: “Make good friends with your leaving care personal advisor (PA). My PA always fought my corner. She was fantastic at cheering me up and encouraging me to keep going when things were awful. She helped me to find happy times, and we are still friends even now!”

Victoria also uses digital tools to manage her wellbeing. “I use an app called Finch for motivation and it helps me with breathing exercises when I’m stressed.” Finch is a self-care tracking app that gives users a virtual pet bird. Users care for the bird by completing self-care tasks and developing positive habits.

She encourages all young people to speak up for their mental health: “Find someone you trust and talk to them.” And her key message for Youth Mental Health Day 2025 is simple but powerful: “Make sure you have a good social network and the right people around you to talk to. You might feel like everything is falling apart but things can change for the better even when you are not expecting it.”

Find out more about our care leavers programme: Shared Lives for care leavers, transitions and young adults.

Find out more about Youth Mental Health Day: Youth Mental Health Day 2025.

*Children’s Commissioner, 2024. Over a quarter of a million children still waiting for mental health support