The Leeds United Academy and Leeds United Foundation have shown their support for Children's Mental Health Week 2021 through various initiatives with Academy youngsters and participants.

Children's Mental Health Week is an annual campaign, taking place from Monday 1st February to Sunday 7th February this year, with the aim of highlighting the importance of mental health within children and young people. This year the theme of the campaign was focused on youngsters expressing themselves - which is more important than ever before as we all struggle through an incredibly difficult period of time due to the worldwide pandemic.

The club's official charity have shown their support for the campaign virtually throughout the past week within a number of their programmes that are centred around work with young people, including the Premier League Kicks projects, disability programmes and Girls Academy pathway. 

A scheme of work was also created by the Premier League Primary Stars team to deliver live lessons everyday into schools across the city, using different subjects and special guests to help promote positive wellbeing, increase education around the topic of mental health, introduce coping mechanisms and encouraging the young students taking part to engage in conversations, speak to others and ask questions. The week of activity included literacy lessons, maths sessions, art sessions and PSCHE lessons with specific teacher training lessons also delivered.

The Leeds United Academy have also taken part in the week of activity, once again showing their support for the If U Care Share campaign and the Inside Out initiative. Inside Out is a campaign that was launched back in 2014 to highlight suicide prevention and mental health awareness. The initiative raises awareness around the importance of talking and bringing what is on the inside, out. Various Academy teams and individual players have shown their support for the campaign throughout the week by wearing their kit inside out, with the hopes of encouraging people to join the conversation around mental health which could lead to saving people's lives.

For more information on the If U Care Share campaign, please click here.

If you would like to learn more about Children's Mental Health Week, please click here.