Anxiety Disorders are the most common mental health problem across the lifespan. They have a particularly early age of onset – half of all people who experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their life will first experience those difficulties by the age of 11 years. Yet we have found that an extremely small proportion of children who experience significant and sustained problems with anxiety receive any sort of professional support, let alone support that is known to be effective.


We spoke to Professor Cathy Creswell about some of the barriers to support for children with anxiety, the Anxiety and Depression in Young people research clinic, and her role as the lead for the Emerging Minds: Action for Child Mental Health research network.