The Coat: Revealing the hidden weight of children’s mental health
By Sue Bell OBE, CEO and Clinical Director of Kids Inspire
Last week, we gathered for the premiere of The Coat – our new short film created with support of our community, released during Children’s Mental Health Week. Although Children’s Mental Health Week has now ended for the year, the themes at the heart of The Coat remain just as urgent.
Before I say anything else, I want to name what this film is really about.
It’s about children.
It’s about what they carry.
And it’s about what can happen when that carrying is finally seen.
The hidden weight many children live with
Many children are walking around with an invisible weight — and they are doing an extraordinary job of coping.
They may look fine on the outside. They may still go to school, still smile, still achieve. But inside, some are holding fear, shame, grief, loneliness, anger, confusion, or a deep sense that something isn’t safe.
And for many children, the hardest part is not only the feeling itself — it’s that they often don’t have words for it, and they don’t yet have a safe enough place to put it down.
At Kids Inspire, we meet children every day whose inner worlds are far heavier than their years should ever require.
Children don’t always communicate their distress with language. They communicate through their bodies and their behaviour — through anxiety, withdrawal, anger, shutdown, perfectionism, sleep problems, stomach aches, and school refusal.
Too often, those signals are misunderstood.
A child who is frightened can be labelled “difficult.”
A child who is overwhelmed can be labelled “attention-seeking.”
A child who shuts down can be labelled “unmotivated.”
A child who lashes out can be labelled “bad.”
But what we see, again and again, is that many of these behaviours are not signs of a child being broken.
They are signs of a child adapting. They are survival responses.
When we hold children in that frame — when we understand behaviour as communication — something begins to shift. We stop asking “What’s wrong with you?” and begin asking “What happened to you?” Or even, “What’s happening around you?” “What are you carrying?” “What have you had to hold alone?”
Why we made The Coat
This is the heart of why we made The Coat.
The film uses a striking and relatable metaphor: a coat bursting with handwritten negative thoughts. It invites us into a child’s inner world, and helps make visible what is so often hidden.
Sometimes, a metaphor can do what facts and statistics cannot. It can bypass the intellect and go straight to empathy.
And if we want children’s mental health to change — not just in policy, but in lived reality — we need more than awareness.
We need understanding, compassion, and action.
Children’s Mental Health Week matters
The Coat has been released during Children’s Mental Health Week — a week that matters deeply, because it reminds us of something we should never forget:
Children’s mental health is not a niche issue. It is not a side issue. It is not a “nice to have.” It is foundational. We know that one in five children in the UK are struggling with their mental health, and that half of all mental health problems begin before the age of fourteen. So if we care about the mental health of our society — if we care about adults — we must care about children. Not later. Now. And not just through slogans, but through real support.
Who Kids Inspire is
Kids Inspire exists to provide free, specialist trauma support to children and families who could not otherwise access it. And the word free matters.
For many families, the difference between getting help and not getting help is not willingness — it is access. Waiting lists, thresholds, cost, postcode, and the sheer exhaustion of trying to navigate systems while already overwhelmed.
Kids Inspire steps into that gap. We provide tailored individual and group sessions, alongside therapeutic interventions that help children recover from trauma and build resilience.
But what makes Kids Inspire different is not just that we support children — it’s how we do it.
We are trauma-responsive. That means we don’t start with diagnosis. We start with safety.
We don’t rush children to talk. We help their bodies settle enough to feel. And we don’t work around families — we work with them. Because no child heals in isolation.
Why this work is more needed than ever
When people say “children are in crisis,” we have to be careful. Children are not fragile. They are incredibly adaptive. What we are seeing is not weak children — we are seeing overloaded nervous systems.
Children are growing up in a world that is faster, noisier, and more demanding. And at the same time, many of the protective buffers children rely on are under strain. Families are stretched. Schools are stretched. Services are stretched. And when systems stretch, children absorb the strain in their bodies. This is why early intervention matters so much.
Because when a child’s distress goes unseen, unsupported, or misunderstood, the weight doesn’t disappear. It accumulates. It can shape identity, learning, relationships, and health. But there is something profoundly hopeful. When children receive the right specialist support — when they are met with compassion rather than judgement — things can change. Not in a superficial way, but in a deep way. In a way that can alter the direction of a life.
A community collaboration
The Coat is not only a Kids Inspire project — it is a community collaboration.
The film was directed by local filmmaker Adam Cameron King and brought to life by a lead teenage actor alongside sixteen other young people from Essex drama schools. Filming took place at Great Baddow High School and at Kids Inspire HQ, with local uniform shops donating costume items.
Everyone involved volunteered their time, united by a shared commitment to raising awareness and supporting children’s mental health.
We are deeply grateful to every person who helped bring this film into being.
An invitation to step closer
If The Coat resonated with you, we invite you not to let that feeling end here.
Children cannot carry this weight alone — and the systems around them cannot change without collective commitment.
At Kids Inspire, we see every day how early, trauma-responsive support can alter the course of a child’s life. But that work depends on people choosing to stand with us.
You can help by:
Making a donation to fund specialist therapy for a child or family
Sharing the film to raise awareness of children’s mental health
Partnering with us as a school, organisation, or business
Referring families who may need support
Becoming part of the wider community that believes children deserve to be met with compassion, not judgement
Whether you are a donor, a professional, a parent, or someone who simply cares — your involvement matters. Together, we can help ensure that no child has to carry invisible weight alone.