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Hello, Jenny Murray here, welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for parents.

Now, children in Scotland are back to school.

In England and Wales, they're due back at the beginning of September,

but I doubt there's a parent in the United Kingdom who isn't

worried about the effect the long separation from friends and education has had since the

start of the pandemic and the lockdown in March. Bonardo's have published some research,

which says more than a million parents have said they feel their children would benefit

from professional treatment to help with their mental health.

Well, it won't, of course, be available to everyone.

So how can parents best support their children?

Ang Harrod Rudkin is a child psychologist. Amanda Nela is the head of C here respond at Bernardo's in England.

Amanda, what concerns have you been hearing from children?

So already, the service has only been launched a month

and already children are referring themselves.

They're telling us of increased anxiety, increased sleeplessness, feeling overwhelmed

by big feelings, which are translating sometimes into quite difficult behaviours within the home.

We're also hearing from children who've taken on caring responsibilities for adults who may be

shielding or caring responsibilities for younger siblings.

From our black Asian minority ethnic children, we're seeing increased hate crime

and increased concerns around how disproportionately their health is being impacted by COVID-19.

So really significant issues that are affecting children that would normally not

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