TempoLife › Features › Mental health support: who to see and what it costs › children-and-teens
Children and teenagers
The school route, the health route and the municipal route, who decides for whom, and what a young person can arrange alone.
This is a map of how the systems work, not a diagnosis and not a treatment plan. It names no practice and no private price, because neither can be kept accurate here. It cannot tell you what is wrong or which treatment you need — that is a clinician's job, and it starts with an appointment. Never stop or change a prescribed medicine on the strength of a web page. If someone's life is in danger right now, call the emergency number: 112 anywhere in the EU and EEA.
Three systems, not one
For an adult there is one system with several doors. For a child there are three systems that must be told apart or you spend months asking the wrong one. Education runs the school support staff — psychologists, special-education teachers, social pedagogues and counsellors — and its job is the child in school. Health care runs the clinical services, from primary care up to child and adolescent psychiatry, and its job is diagnosis and treatment. The municipality runs child protection, family support and social services, and its job is the family and the child’s safety. A referral that goes to the wrong one of the three does not fail loudly; it just takes a term.
Start with the school, usually
For anything showing up as school refusal, falling grades, bullying, concentration or behaviour, the school is the fastest and most appropriate first contact, and in every country here the school has an obligation to arrange access to support specialists for its pupils. Finland’s study welfare and Denmark’s municipal pedagogical psychological service are formalised versions of the same idea; Estonia adds the national Rajaleidja service, which provides educational counselling — including psychological assessment — to children and young people in education and to their parents and teachers. Sweden and Norway put a first-line municipal service alongside the school. Ask the class teacher for the school’s support specialist by name.
When it is health rather than school
Some things need the clinical route from the start: a marked change in mood or behaviour, self-harm, an eating disorder, suspected psychosis, severe anxiety that stops normal life, or any concern about safety. That route runs through the GP or primary care to child and adolescent psychiatry, by referral in the Nordic countries and directly in the Baltic systems described on each country page. Eating disorders deserve a specific note: they are the one group where waiting is genuinely dangerous because the physical risk is real, and family-based treatment for adolescents has strong evidence, so early contact and a family-inclusive service matter more than usual.
Consent and who is told
Every country here recognises that a child’s capacity to decide grows with maturity rather than switching on at a birthday, but the details differ: the age at which a young person can consent to treatment alone, the age at which they can keep it from a parent, and what a service must do about a child at risk. As a rule, older teenagers can approach many services on their own, helplines and school staff are available to any child, and confidentiality applies to young people too — with the same narrow exceptions as for adults, plus a child-protection duty that is stronger. A young person who wants to know exactly where they stand should ask the service directly at the first contact; it is a question they are used to.
What parents can do that helps
Three things, and they are unglamorous. Write down what you have observed with dates — sleep, eating, school attendance, mood, withdrawal, when it changed — because a clinician assessing a child depends heavily on the account of the adults around them. Protect sleep, which is both a symptom and a driver in adolescence, and where school start times, phones and light exposure are the practical levers. And be careful not to make the treatment a second front: the parent’s job is to bring the child to the help and to keep the household functioning, not to become the therapist. Anything involving self-harm, threats to life or an eating disorder goes past all of this and into the routes on the crisis page.
If nothing is happening
The commonest failure is a family stuck in the wrong one of the three systems. Ask directly which system owns the problem and ask for the handover to be made rather than being sent back to the start. School support staff, municipal family services and the child helplines all know the map, and the helplines in particular will talk to a worried parent as readily as to a child. Every country page in this surface lists that country’s child helpline number.
Sources: Rajaleidja — educational counselling in Estonia · Harno — Estonian Education and Youth Board · Lasteabi — Estonian child helpline · BRIS — children’s rights in society, Sweden · Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, Finland · Vaikų linija — Lithuanian children’s line · Rules, entitlements and helpline numbers change: check the operator's own page before you rely on one. Checked 2026-09-08.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I start if my child is struggling?
For school-linked problems — attendance, grades, bullying, concentration, behaviour — start with the school’s support specialist. For clinical concerns such as self-harm, an eating disorder, suspected psychosis or a marked change in mood, start with primary care or the child and adolescent psychiatric route.
Can a teenager get help without telling their parents?
Often, to a degree that grows with age and maturity, and the specific rules differ by country. School staff and the child helplines are available to any young person, and confidentiality applies to them too. The service will answer the question directly if it is asked at first contact.
How urgent is an eating disorder?
Urgent. It is the group where waiting is genuinely dangerous because the physical risk is real, and where family-based treatment for adolescents has strong evidence. Early clinical contact and a family-inclusive service matter more here than anywhere else in child mental health.
What should I write down before an appointment?
Dated observations: sleep, eating, school attendance, mood, withdrawal from friends, and when each changed. Assessment of a child leans heavily on the account of the adults around them, and a dated record is far more useful than an impression.
Children, students and employees
Students
The most over-served and under-used group in the region: what a student health service actually covers, and the two administrative traps.
Getting help through work
Occupational health, employee assistance schemes and sick leave: the fastest route in the region for an employed person, and the one most employees never open.
All countries and guides
The hub: the five professions compared, seven country systems, every public register and every crisis line.
How this works where you live
Every rule on this page is filtered through one country's system before it reaches you. The country pages carry the doors, the registers and the numbers.
Estonia · Finland · Latvia · Lithuania · Sweden · Norway · Denmark
Keep the record the appointment will ask for
Sleep, mood, activity and medicines, dated and in one place. It makes an assessment better, it makes a review honest, and it is the difference between "worse lately" and two weeks of evidence.