Children and Young People’s Mental Health

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. We have talked a lot about self-isolation over the past year but less about the impact of being isolated on our mental health. Many children and young people have faced the disruption, hardship and heartbreak of this pandemic largely away from their friends and school support networks.

Last week, I visited a breakfast club at a primary school in Camden, where I had some really uplifting conversations with young children. Most were absolutely delighted to be back in school, around their classmates and teachers once again. We know that the attainment gap has widened substantially during school closures, in part due to the Government’s failure to deliver laptops to disadvantaged children. Many of the children I have spoken to, however, found that their wellbeing and mental health took the biggest hit in lockdown. Most have been able to do classes on Zoom and to get on with their homework remotely, but they said that the wellbeing support which can only be delivered properly by teachers in person is what they have missed out on the most. The teachers I spoke to at the school expressed their frustration that they were not able to do more to help with mental health issues during school closures.

Children with special educational needs and disabilities have suffered particularly badly, with three quarters of parents saying that their disabled child is socially isolated and often unhappy, downhearted or tearful, and that there is a real risk that that could translate into serious long-term mental health issues without better support. That is also something I have picked up in my role as the governor of a primary school in my constituency. Remote learning also stifled the role that teachers often play in spotting problems that are emerging, intervening with assistance or, in serious cases, with referrals to other services.

The number of children and young people receiving support through the NHS for mental health difficulties halved in April and May last year, as did the number of referrals to CAMHS, compared with the previous year. Sadly, the number of current referrals does not make up that shortfall or address the worsening problems caused by the pandemic. That means that many children are still suffering in silence and without the support that they desperately need.

I heard that message loud and clear last summer when I met a group of inspiring children—the meeting was organised by Barnardo’s—who told me about the isolation and other difficulties they had faced as a result of the pandemic. They also spoke about how difficult it can be to access basic mental health assistance and how there is almost no joined-up thinking between different but related support services in some areas of the country. The reality is that young people are far too often unable to access mental health support until it is too late and they have, sadly, started to harm themselves.

It is a source of great sadness and shame that one in six young people in the UK could now have a mental health disorder, up from one in nine in 2017. We must turn that around, which requires a laser-like focus on improving access to mental health support, and giving schools and other bodies the resources to provide direct targeted help and to join up children’s services properly. The children and young people I have spoken to over the past year simply cannot afford to wait for the snail’s pace of change that this Government are overseeing in prioritising and investing in mental health support. We have to act, and we have to act now.