Sesame Street’s Elmo encourages children to ‘Celebrate The Day’ ahead of Children’s Mental Health Week

Sesame Workshop’s latest Mindful Moments video encourages children to celebrate themselves, others and what makes them happy. The newly released video, created for Place2Be’s Children’s Mental Health Week, features beloved Sesame Street character Elmo in conversation with musician, author, broadcaster and Place2Be Ambassador YolanDa Brown.

Sesame Workshop, the global impact non-profit behind Sesame Street, launched a new video today to mark Place2Be’s Children’s Mental Health Week. In Celebrate The Day, Sesame Street’s Elmo calls musician, author and friend YolanDa Brown to talk about his ‘best day ever’ - the two share a mindfulness moment - celebrating themselves, others and what makes them happy.

Aimed at early-years children, Celebrate The Day models healthy habits to promote positive wellbeing from a young age. One in five children and young people in England have a probable mental health condition*, and many continue to have these into adulthood. Evidence shows that early intervention - providing children with the tools to cope with challenges from a young age - can help lay the foundation for lifelong, good mental health.

This Children’s Mental Health Week, Place2Be and Sesame Workshop have joined forces to support children’s emotional literacy. They are also helping families to have important conversations about emotional wellbeing and mental health. Celebrate The Day sits as part of a suite of resources available to families for Children’s Mental Health Week and is also available on the Sesame Workshop’s YouTube channel.

Watch the full 'Celebrate the Day' video here

“Like anything in life, it’s important to build a strong foundation for emotional wellbeing at an early age,” said Whit Higgins, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Enterprises, Sesame Workshop.

YolanDa, an award-winning musician, author, broadcaster and educator, has been an Ambassador for Place2Be since 2021, and is a good friend of Elmo and the Sesame Street Muppets. The video sees her encourage an excited Elmo to have a calm, mindful moment and celebrate himself and his day - a message weaved into the core of Children’s Mental Health Week 2024. 

Launched in 2015, Children’s Mental Health Week 2024 will take place from 5-11 February. This year’s theme is My Voice Matters and Place2Be is encouraging children and young people to share what matters to them, express themselves and celebrate each other. Research shows that:

• empowering children and young people can have a positive impact on their wellbeing
• children who feel that their voices are heard have higher levels of self-efficacy and self-esteem.

In May 2023, Sesame Workshop announced its organisation-wide focus on the emotional wellbeing of young children and their families. Responding to the growing mental health crisis for young children, and building on decades of experience developing social-emotional learning content for families, Sesame Workshop is addressing this critical need through a wide range of activities and engaging content, including Mindfulness Moments, designed for the whole family and available on multiple platforms to reach children and families wherever they are.

A number of Sesame Workshop’s series are available to watch in the UK across multiple broadcast platforms. Fans can catch the latest seasons of Sesame Street on Amazon Kids+; Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck, Elmo’s World, Super Grover 2.0, Cookie’s Crumby Pictures, Smart Cookies and Elmo and Tango’s Mysterious Mysteries on Tiny Pop; Mecha Builders on Channel 5’s Milkshake; Bea’s Blocks and Mr Zoink on Sky Kids; The Furchester Hotel on CBeebies and iPlayer.