A – Z Guide to Children and Young People’s Digital Mental Health

Emily Brock, CEO, YMCA DownsLink Group9th September 2025

This book is an indispensable guide for parents, teachers, educators and professionals navigating the ever-evolving world of children and young people’s digital mental health. Drawing on Becca’s extensive experience and expertise, it explores the pressing challenges young people face online - from fake news and body image pressures to digital self-harm, trolling, gambling, gaming, online hate, FOMO, influencers, and AI. In a time of uncertainty, with limited regulation and guidance from authorities, it provides practical insights and reassurance, helping adults support young people safely, confidently, and compassionately in the digital age.

Professor Robin Banerjee, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global and Civic Engagement University of Sussex9th September 2025

Becca Randell’s guide to digital mental health for children and young people is informative, evidence-based, insightful, and extremely timely. The A to Z list of topics, from AI to Zoning Out, covers a diverse set of key contemporary issues that are playing out in the everyday digital worlds of children and young people, and spilling over into their offline interactions with each other and with the adults in their lives.

Becca Randell combines deep knowledge and understanding from her extensive professional experience with the latest statistical data, research findings, and new evidence from extensive consultation with parents, with educators and other professionals, and importantly with children and young people themselves. As well as setting out a helpful overarching framework that integrates these insights, the guide will help readers navigate what often feels like a bewildering set of challenges in today’s digital world, with simple but powerful activities and practical tips.

Becca Randell is a Children’s Digital Consultant and the Founder of Empowering Digital Lives, which aims to help parents and professionals support themselves, children, and young people to thrive online through digital literacy, safety, and digital wellbeing.

She is currently leading the mobilisation of digital mental health innovation as part of the Health Innovation Network and the implementation of research in children and young people’s mental health for National Institute of Health and Care (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration. A mother of two teenagers, she presents both nationally and internationally on children’s mental wellbeing.