Three leading companies join UNICEF and the Z Zurich Foundation to advocate for greater investment and action to promote young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
The Global Coalition for Youth Mental Health, under the auspices of UNICEF, is pleased to announce today that three leading global companies – Jo Malone London, Spotify and Zurich Insurance Group – have joined the initiative.
The new members of the Coalition, which was launched in April 2022 with the support of the Z Zurich Foundation, will be instrumental in driving public and private sector investment and action to promote mental wellbeing and prevent mental health problems, and ensure support for young people and caregivers with mental illness.
Even before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, young people were the most affected: half of all mental disorders develop before the age of 14, and 75 per cent develop by early adulthood.* It is estimated that one in seven young people are affected by mental health problems. Despite this, on average just 2 per cent of government health budgets worldwide are allocated to mental health.**
Support for measures to promote young people’s mental wellbeing and prevent problems is at a very low level. While government funding around the world is mainly channeled towards addressing crisis intervention and chronic mental illness, more resources need to be allocated to the promotion of mental wellbeing and to prevention.
The announcement of the new members comes in the month following World Mental Health Day, which shone a spotlight on the growing burden of mental health problems on children, adolescents and caregivers worldwide. At the same time, this international day of action highlighted the severe global shortage of funding and measures to promote mental wellbeing.
“Children and young people are our future, and we should be doing everything we can to invest in the support they need. Failure to do so leaves them vulnerable to greater distress and at risk of missing out on life chances, limiting their future potential,” said Carla Haddad Mardini, Director of UNICEF’s Private Fundraising and Partnerships. “Businesses have a crucial role to play in raising awareness and helping to drive more investment and action. I’d like to thank Jo Malone London, Spotify, Z Zurich Foundation and Zurich Insurance Group for showing global leadership on this issue, and urgently encourage others to do the same.”
With a growing gap between need, investment and action, the Global Coalition for Youth Mental Health is calling on public and private sector companies to join the global movement and help it realize its goal of reaching 30 million young people in 30 countries by 2030.
“For the past 10 years, Jo Malone London has been committed to positive mental health through raising awareness, providing support and helping to reduce stigma. In honor of this 10-year milestone, we are thrilled to join the UNICEF-hosted Global Coalition for Youth Mental Health. We will leverage the Coalition’s collective voice to help stamp out stigma and provide support for children, adolescents and caregivers. Collaboration will be key, and working together with other businesses will be critical to inspire hope and to make a much-needed difference”, said Jo Dancey, Global General Manager, Jo Malone London.
The Coalition will engage its members and network to fight stigma, raise awareness, increase private and public investment in mental wellbeing programs and improve business practices related to workplace mental wellbeing. UNICEF believes that the latter not only promote employee wellbeing and company performance, but also benefit the mental wellbeing of employees’ families and communities.
“At the Z Zurich Foundation, we are prioritizing the mental wellbeing of young people and programs which support them. We are calling on the private sector to join us and support the Global Coalition for Youth Mental Health. Through joint action, we can help create a brighter future for young people globally”, said Gary Shaughnessy, Chair of the Z Zurich Foundation.
“As a global insurance company, we know that prevention is better than relief and repair and this is true for most of the global challenges that society is facing today. We strongly believe that private and public investments should be increased to improve mental wellbeing promotion and prevention work. That is why we are proud to have joined the Global Coalition for Youth Mental Health hosted by UNICEF. Zurich Insurance Group is committed to working hand in hand with other corporations to ensure mental wellbeing is a global priority. We welcome other leading businesses to join us”, said Linda Freiner, Group Head of Sustainability, Zurich Insurance Group.
The Coalition was born out of the belief that addressing this challenge requires concerted and collective action by a range of stakeholders. It is now time for joint action on mental health, for every child.
* Kessler RC, Berglund P, Demler O, Jin R, Merikangas KR, Walters EE. (2005). Lifetime Prevalence and Age-of-Onset Distributions of DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62 (6) pp. 593–602. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.62.6.593.
** https://www.unicef.org/media/114636/file/SOWC-2021-full-report-English…, page 10