Mental illness is a major health problem in children and young people, and there is evidence that mental illness is increasing among young people in the population. More than 80 % of the cost to society of mental illness in children in Sweden is the cost of treatment and care. Only a small portion thus consists of preventive interventions. The report "Programs to prevent mental illness in children - a systematic literature review" (2010) from the Swedish National Council on Technology Assessment (SBU), concluded that no prevention program has evidence of efficacy under Swedish conditions. A target for future prevention work is according to the authors SBU-report that programs that are used have scientific support and evaluated in Sweden. Based on the review the report's authors recommend that five programs should be prioritized for further evaluation. One of these five programs is FRIENDS for life, a prevention program to prevent anxiety.