October 10, World Mental Health Day: Eight CAMHI Guides Turn Research on Adolescents' Digital Lives into Practical Guidance for Parents

This year's World Mental Health Day, themed "Lived Experiences Heard: Real Voices, Real Change", asks us to do something simple yet deeply important: to listen to people and their stories. It reminds us that people who face mental health challenges hold valuable, irreplaceable knowledge that complements scientific evidence and professional expertise. That is why these voices and experiences must be heard not occasionally, but meaningfully and systematically, with people given space to help shape the services, policies and decisions that affect their lives.

This matters even more when it comes to young people. They are not merely recipients of decisions that adults make for them. They have their own knowledge, perspective and voice. Their daily lives, relationships, school, family and the digital world are all areas where their point of view can help us better understand their needs and design more meaningful responses to support their mental wellbeing.

If we truly want to understand what young people need in order to feel well and safe, we must first listen to them. But meaningful participation goes beyond giving them room to speak. It means listening systematically and creating pathways for their experiences to influence the decisions, services and practices that concern them: moving from talking about young people to designing together with them.

For CAMHI, this year's theme is already reflected in concrete work. Our latest report, Growing Up Digital: An Evidence-to-Policy Synthesis, combines an analysis of the scientific literature and available data with the voices of 85 adolescents from five cities across Greece, who spoke in their own words about their own digital lives.

Their experiences did not stop at being documented. Drawing on the research findings and inspired by what the adolescents told us, we developed eight guides for parents on digital life and the family. The guides translate the report's conclusions into everyday life at home and help parents and caregivers respond to real challenges, from excessive screen time to tensions over rules and the differing needs of each child.

In this way, young people's lived experience becomes knowledge, knowledge becomes a tool, and the tool becomes action within the family.

Developed in collaboration with the Child Mind Institute (New York), the guides do not propose strict, one-size-fits-all rules. Instead, they draw on what research tells us to help every parent and caregiver better understand their own child's needs and make the decisions that suit their family.

Find the guides here

All CAMHI short guides are developed in partnership with the Child Mind Institute, with exclusive support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) as part of SNF's Global Health Initiative.