Jo Malone London, Spotify, Zurich Insurance Group join Global Coalition for Youth Mental Well-being
Three leading companies join UNICEF and Z Zurich Foundation to advocate for greater investment and action to support young people’s mental health and well-being.
GENEVA, 3 NOVEMBER 2022 – The Global Coalition for Youth Mental Well-being, hosted by 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 first launched in April 2022 with the support of Z Zurich Foundation, will play a lead role in helping to drive forward public and private sector investment and action to promote mental well-being, prevent mental health challenges, and ensure support to young people and caregivers with mental health conditions.
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, young people were suffering the most with half of all mental disorders developing before the age of 14, and 75 per cent by early adulthood.* One in seven young people were estimated to be experiencing mental challenges. Despite this, on average just 2% of government health budgets globally are allocated to mental health.**
Support for youth mental health promotion and prevention is particularly low. While Government funding globally is mostly channelled to addressing crisis intervention and chronic mental illnesses, more funds need to be directed towards mental well-being promotion and prevention.
The announcement of the new members comes in the month following World Mental Health Day, which helped to shine a spotlight on the growing burden of mental health issues on children, adolescents and caregivers worldwide, but also highlighted the severe global shortage of funding and action on mental well-being.
“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.”
The growing gap between need and investment and action is why the Global Coalition for Youth Mental Well-being is calling for public and private sector companies to join the global movement to realize its ambition 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 honour of this 10-year milestone, we are thrilled to join the UNICEF-hosted Global Coalition for Youth Mental Wellbeing. 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 address stigma, raise awareness, increase private and public investment for mental well-being programming and improve business practices related to workplace mental well-being. UNICEF believes the latter not only improves employee well-being and company performance, but also employees’ family and community mental well-being.
“At the Z Zurich Foundation, we are prioritizing the mental well-being 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 Well-being. 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 well-being promotion and prevention work. That is why we are proud to have joined the Global Coalition for Youth Mental Wellbeing 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/
