Children’s Mental Health Week 2024

Jeremy Quin Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve while you are in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) on introducing the subject in such a wide-ranging and compassionate way. I prepared only a few notes because I thought the debate would be over-subscribed, but I hope we will still fill the time. I might add a few things that I have not prepared.

I want to focus particularly on adverse childhood experiences. I have been the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the prevention of adverse childhood experiences, which we now call the APPG for childhood trauma, for some years. Listening to and understanding the science of adverse childhood experiences has given me a real insight. I commend the WAVE Trust, which has also done a lot of work on attachment disorder and the importance of a child’s early attachment to their mother. The trust has been a fabulous supporter of the APPG for childhood trauma.

Our children are falling through the cracks. It is clear that our approach to childhood mental health is not working—I agree with the hon. Member for Tooting on that. As the chair of the APPG for childhood trauma, I will focus my attention on trauma in mental health.

Adverse childhood experiences, also known as ACEs, are the biggest drivers of poor mental health in children. They can be anything that threatens to overwhelm the child, including abuse and neglect. Being unable to process prolonged stress can alter a child’s normal brain function, which often stays with that person all their life. That is what we call trauma. A child’s brain helps them to survive in the moment, but it assumes that persistent stress or danger is normal and it therefore adapts to constant adrenalin. Because of that, those who experience childhood trauma are twice as likely to develop depression and three times as likely to develop anxiety disorders.

Very often, children’s behaviour at school is also affected. I asked a question in Education questions earlier this week about the Government’s behaviour policy, because ACEs are not even mentioned in it. If we do not talk about ACEs more—I use every opportunity to talk about them—gaps appear in the behaviour policy or guidelines to schools. The Department for Education does not even mention ACEs and childhood trauma; that needs to be corrected.

Many children carry their traumatic experience into later life. Someone’s chances of dropping out of school, being obese or even developing diseases such as strokes are higher the more ACEs they have experienced. The life expectancy of those with six or more ACEs is 20 years lower than that of peers with none. There is no limit for the reach of ACEs. That does not mean that people who suffer adverse childhood experiences are invariably condemned to a life of disadvantage, but it is so much more likely. We therefore have to focus on it.

Poverty is also an adverse childhood experience. That is why the connection between mental ill health and poverty is so important. We need to focus and see it for what it is.

[Sir Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a fascinating speech, and I look forward to hearing more from her on a future occasion. She draws attention to how young people can get support and be recognised. In my constituency, we had a series of tragic events. Out of that, the NHS has provided i-Rock Horsham District, which is an opportunity for young people without a referral—without being told by a teacher, parent or doctor that this is the appropriate path—to present themselves for professional support. It will not be fully-fledged psychiatric support but it will have that triaging process, sometimes helping them with more basic issues or reassuring them, but often helping to pick up where they really need the kind of support my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) and others have referred to. That is proving extremely effective in my constituency.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I could not agree more. I hope my speech will make everybody here realise that we need much more understanding about ACEs. Some countries have that understanding and roll out trauma-informed services across the board, including police, education, welfare and health. A better understanding of ACEs will lead to more specialism and more people understanding this area. Trauma-informed schools, for instance, would also mean that teachers pick things up and go deeper into the issues of childhood trauma. I was a secondary school teacher before I became a Member of Parliament, and I sometimes wish I had known about ACEs, given some of the behavioural challenges I faced, which would make someone think, “That is just a very difficult child.” If I had known more, I would probably have picked up the behaviour as that of a traumatised child, rather than that of somebody who was consistently causing trouble. We would therefore deal with children differently.