Mental Health: Children and Young People

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, for initiating this debate. Her concern for the health and well-being of children and young people is well known, and her speech today has confirmed that concern.

I share the anxieties of GPs, many of whom are struggling to help young people in the face of extraordinary stresses. Also under stress are services—not only youth services but health, education, social services and the police—and here lies the problem. Young people’s mental health is rarely sudden or one-dimensional. Mental health issues are embedded in experiences such as poverty and from their contacts with parents, families, friends, education, youth services, the police and health. Youth services are disappearing, while many schools are focusing less on activities such as sport, music and art as more are driven by an academic curriculum which places students under stress. This is an issue recently raised by the chief inspector of Ofsted. Of course GPs and other services are under pressure. Will the Minister agree that child mental health is the responsibility of a number of agencies and that those agencies, like schools, also need support and more emphasis on PSHE programmes, good pastoral care—such as school counsellors—and working together to focus on young people?

Two years ago in Portcullis House, I facilitated a Council of Europe-UK Parliament seminar on child mental health and child-friendly justice, with young people aged 14 to 23 and many NGOs. Children and young people were listened to and consulted respectfully. They were clear and articulate in their concerns about services and could identify factors that had gone wrong for them, now and when they were younger. Their main complaint was that services were too little and too late. They wanted services that were appropriate to their needs. One young woman, responding to an Association for Young People’s Health survey, said:

“Very often there’s no help available until the problem has become totally unmanageable”.


Above all, they want a consistent, sympathetic adult to relate to.

Apart from access to treatment, treatment for children and young people has to be customised. It is simply not acceptable to have under-18s put into treatment services designed for adults. Some young people have very specific needs for mental health, such as in relation to youth justice. A high proportion of young people in the criminal justice system have mental health problems, which may not be addressed and can only get worse. Services are a vital part of addressing mental health needs in the population. I am concerned about funding at a local level, the co-ordination of services locally and young people having to fill in questionnaire after questionnaire for different services. I ask the Minister: will the Government be imaginative and forceful in tackling this issue and encourage dialogue with young people and co-ordination between services?