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Mental wellbeing policy template for families
A mental wellbeing policy template for families, with fill-in fields for crisis contacts, online safety, platform reports, trusted adults, and review.
Nobody thinks clearly at eleven at night. That is the entire argument for deciding these things in daylight.
This mental wellbeing policy template is a one-page skeleton for a household: what we do when someone here is struggling. It is not a contract and it creates no obligation on anyone. It exists so that the adults have already made three or four decisions before the night they would otherwise be making them badly.
What to take away
- Write it when nothing is wrong. A plan drafted during a crisis is a record of the crisis, not a plan.
- Keep it to one page and keep the adults on it, not only the young people.
- Every line should be something you could actually do at eleven at night while frightened.
- Name 911 for immediate danger and 988 for crisis support; do not leave either line blank.
The skeleton
Copy the headings, fill in your own answers, and delete anything you would not actually do.
Copy-ready page
Copy this page, fill in the blanks, and keep it where the adults can find it.
- Immediate danger:Call 911. Home address or current location: __________.
- Suicide or mental-health crisis:Call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Adult who stays: __________. Adult who makes calls: __________.
- First trusted adult:Name, relationship, phone: __________. Backup adult and phone: __________.
- Other care contacts:Doctor and phone: __________. School contact and phone: __________.
- If social media is involved:Platform and account: __________. Post, message, or profile details to preserve: __________. Adult who handles the platform report: __________. School contact, if relevant: __________.
- If suspected child sexual exploitation is involved:Adult who will contact NCMEC's CyberTipline: __________. Keep safety and reporting ahead of confronting anyone.
- Privacy and safety:What we will keep private, and what we will share if someone is in danger: __________.
- Phone and support:What stays available and what support we offer while we wait: __________.
- Review date:__________.
Household mental wellbeing plan
- Immediate dangercall emergency services first
- Talk of self-harmstay, get same-day help
- Name the adults who will be told
- Telling us never costs the phone
- Write down doctor, school, one adult
- List two or three things to do while waiting
If anyone here is in immediate danger. Call 911 before anything else on this page. Nobody has to be certain, and nobody gets asked afterwards why they called.
If someone says they do not want to be here, or talks about hurting themselves. We take it seriously the first time, however it was said. We say we are glad they told us and stay with them. We call or text 988 for crisis support, and get medical help the same day rather than next week. We do not investigate first.
Who we tell. Name the adults. Say plainly what the young people in the house can ask to be kept between two people and what cannot be. The honest version is short: you can ask me not to tell people, and I will keep that, except where you are in danger, and then I will tell you before I tell anyone else.
What does not change. Telling us never costs the phone. Telling us never costs the thing they were doing when it happened. This is the line that decides whether there is a second conversation, so it goes in writing and it goes above the rest.
Who we ring first. The family doctor's number, the school's pastoral contact, and the name of one other adult who knows this child. Written down, because you will not want to be searching for any of them on the night.
For example, the lines might read: doctor (555) 010-4477, school (555) 010-3321, one other adult (555) 010-8890. The 555-01 numbers are examples. Replace them with your own.
What we do while we wait. Two or three things this house can actually do: the sleep rule, one meal together, one thing outside the house at the weekend. If a social-media incident is involved, preserve the account and post details and use the platform's reporting tools; do not turn the phone into a punishment. Small and real beats ambitious.
What we review, and when. A date. Three months is enough. Written in as an example: review on March 7, then again on June 7. A page with no review date is a page that will describe last year's household.
The four decisions worth making in advance
These are the ones that go badly when they are made in the moment.
Four decisions to make in advance
- Who calls the doctor
- What you tell a sibling, and when
- What you say to school, and who is present
- Which household rules relax during a bad month
Who is called first. One adult and one backup, with numbers already written down. The order gets settled before the night, not during it.
How much is told, and to whom. Say in advance what a young person can ask to keep between two people, and say what the exception is.
Who stays, and who makes the calls. One adult stays with the young person. Another adult handles the phone and the door. Settle it now.
What is not taken away afterwards. The phone, the club, the weekend thing. Decide now that none of it is withdrawn over what was said.
What does not belong on the page
Anything clinical. This is a household plan, not an assessment, and a page that tries to describe what to look for will end up being read as a checklist and applied to an ordinary bad fortnight.
Anything you will not enforce. A promise of blanket secrecy belongs nowhere near it, because it is the one you will break at the worst moment.
Anything about screens as a consequence. Attaching device rules to distress converts a phone into a punishment for being unhappy, which is the fastest route to not being told next time. Keep those rules on their own page: screen-time habits covers changing a pattern for its own reasons.
And any promise about outcomes. This page cannot say that things will be fine, and pretending otherwise devalues everything above it.
Where to get the vocabulary right
You do not need clinical language to write this, and using it badly makes the page worse. If you want a neutral reference before an appointment, the National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus has a general page on Teen Mental Health. The National Institute of Mental Health also publishes material aimed at families rather than clinicians.
Their titles are Teen Mental Health and Children and Mental Health: Is This Just a Stage?
Read either to get your terms straight for a conversation with a doctor. Do not read either looking for a threshold, because they do not contain one and your child is not on the page.
How to introduce it without it landing badly
Write it with them if they are old enough to be asked, and show it to them either way. A plan discovered on a fridge during a bad week reads as evidence that you have been expecting this.
Introducing the plan
- Write it with them if old enough
- Show it to them either way
- Say in one sentence what it is for
- Let them argue with a line
- Change one line to their edit
- Keep it separate from phone agreements
Say what it is for in one sentence: this is so that we do not have to work things out on a bad night. Then let them argue with a line, and change one. A document with one of their edits in it is a different object from a document handed down.
If the household already has a written agreement about phones or rules, keep this separate. Mixing safety with permissions makes both harder to read, and family agreements covers the other page.
When the page is not the right tool
Some things are past a household plan and should not be routed through one.
Sustained targeting by other young people needs a response beyond this household plan: preserve post and account details, use the platform's reporting tools, and tell the school's contact listed on the page. For suspected child sexual exploitation, an adult can report to NCMEC's CyberTipline. NCMEC's Take It Down may be relevant when a nude or sexually explicit image of a minor is involved; do not download or forward such an image. Anything involving an adult in contact with your child, images of a minor, or a demand for money or pictures belongs with reporting resources immediately rather than with a family conversation.
And where a change has lasted weeks, spread across more than one part of life, and is not lifting, the page has done its job the moment it points you at the doctor. Everything after that is theirs.
Common questions
Is a written plan not a bit much for an ordinary family?
One page, written on a quiet Sunday, with crisis contacts, trusted adults, and agreed steps for an online incident. The point is not formality. It is that three decisions get made while nobody is frightened.
What if my child refuses to look at it?
Leave it where they can find it and say once that it exists. A refused document that they know the contents of has done most of what it was for.
Should the plan say what we will do if they will not talk?
It can, and the honest content is short: we will not push it, we will say what we noticed, and we will ask again in a week. Writing that down stops the escalation that otherwise happens on day three.
Do we need one if nothing has ever happened?
Yes, and it takes about an hour.
This is a template for a household, not a clinical or legal document. It creates no obligation on anyone and states no medical criteria. Speak to a qualified professional about your own child, and where a child is in immediate danger, contact emergency services.
