Giving Compass' Take:

• This Atlantic article reports on how the UK is taking the lead on teaching kids how to deal with feelings of isolation. With mental health among young people rising, how can the U.S. follow suit?

• What programs are best equipped to deal with loneliness? How does social and emotional learning (SEL) — which is rising in support — fit into the larger picture?

• Here's why loneliness in general is a bigger health risk than we make think.  

Starting in September of 2020, schoolchildren across the United Kingdom will learn from their teachers how to fend off loneliness.

In January, British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed the first “minister of loneliness.” This week, her administration released a 84-page plan detailing the specific actions it will take to curb loneliness across the country, including measures that will be enacted in schools. Starting in primary school, students will have mandatory lessons in “relationships education,” and such lessons will also be incorporated into sex-ed classes in high school.

The Brigham Young University psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad, one of the foremost scholars on loneliness in the United States, warns the U.S. has a significant, largely unaddressed loneliness problem of its own — and that schools desperately need to follow the U.K.’s lead and incorporate preventative measures into their lessons.

Read the full article on preventing loneliness in schools by Ashley Fetters at The Atlantic.