Woman's app to help children with mental health

A woman who saw a gap in mental health provisions for children is set to launch a new app to support youngsters.

Vivian Tanaka was born in Zimbabwe before moving to Braintree, Essex, and later to Ipswich, Suffolk.

After university she began working in schools where she noticed children often struggled to seek mental health support and did not have a platform to share their feelings.

Inspired by her experiences, she developed the Kamelion app, which has already been supported by Suffolk County Council on behalf of several schools.

Ms Tanaka was previously headhunted to work on an emotional wellbeing project in Suffolk schools commissioned by the Clinical Commissioning Group.

She also later set up her own business to offer wellbeing programmes for young people.

Through all this she said she saw children often could not easily access mental health help.

"I saw a gap with young people and the one thing they were missing was the relationship that they had with themselves," she explained.

"We're so used to focusing on how do I make other people happy? How do I please other people?

"But sometimes we forget about the relationship that we have with ourselves and we spend 24/7 with ourselves."

Ms Tanaka came up with an app idea to provide a space where children can explore how they are feeling.

Her app, which has been backed by a private investor, launches on 1 July.

She worked with young people across Suffolk to develop it and it allows children to track and journal their feelings, it has interactive learning resources and users are rewarded with coins they can redeem via retailer discounts.

Ms Tanaka said the county council had already purchased licences on behalf of some schools, meaning a minimum of 2,000 children will have access to it once it goes live.

"It's cheaper for schools and cheaper for authorities, it saves money," she added.

"It saves money for public health services as we know the NHS is overwhelmed.

"I thought if we become that gap between schools, education and healthcare, young people can learn to help and support themselves."

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