Children and Young People: Mental Health Services Debate
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Lord Touhig
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Children and Young People: Mental Health Services
Lord Touhig Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord O'Shaughnessy
I thank my noble friend for that. I think it is a fair challenge. I hope he will be reassured that of the 21,000 more mental health professionals we intend to recruit, 1,700 are therapists—including psychotherapists, educational therapists and others.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, 17 % of children excluded from school in England have learning difficulties. Will the review the Government are talking about take account of that and see whether we should be doing more, because it could well be a cause of children’s mental ill health?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
These are interconnected but separate issues. Anyone can suffer from mental health problems, including a high propensity of children with learning difficulties. A separate line of work led solely by the DfE is providing specific educational support for children with learning difficulties. The point of having specialist staff in all primary and secondary schools is to spot any child, whatever their vulnerability, and signpost them to services.