Children and Young People’s Mental Health Debate

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Department: Department of Health and Social Care

Children and Young People’s Mental Health

Zarah Sultana Excerpts
Wednesday 16th June 2021

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Zarah Sultana Portrait Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting Positive Youth Foundation in my constituency. I had the best time, as videos on my social media show. It is a fantastic organisation providing young people in Coventry with a huge range of activities and opportunities. Visiting the centre, I saw the bonds that had been formed between the staff, volunteers and young people and the confidence and support that gave them. I want to begin by paying tribute to everyone at Positive Youth Foundation from its founder and CEO Rashid Bhayat to all the staff and volunteers.

As staff and volunteers made clear to me, this is an incredibly challenging time for young people, with more than half of safeguarding reports at the centre being about children’s and young people’s emotional wellbeing and mental health. The pandemic, and the new stresses, strains and isolation it has brought, has added to what was already a mental health crisis for children and young people. Before coronavirus hit, one in five young people aged between 16 and 24 suffered mental ill-health, and for school-aged children the figure was one in six. That has only got worse in the last 12 months. University students have been trapped in accommodation, away from friends and family, and have missed out on what should be the most exciting time of their lives. Almost two thirds of the people who have lost jobs during the pandemic are under 25. Schoolchildren have been missing out on vital education and have often been stuck in overcrowded homes with overstretched parents.

Things have got even worse for oppressed groups. Nearly three in four children with autism have a mental health condition, but in Coventry waiting times for autism assessments have been growing, and were doing so even before the pandemic. Working-class and LGBT+ young people, and children from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities all have greater rates of mental ill- health. What makes this not just a crisis but a scandal is the totally inadequate support for children and young people’s mental health.

More than a decade of austerity has cut away the support that was once provided, while deepening the problems that give rise to mental ill-health. Since 2011, mental health trusts have faced a real-terms cut of more than 8%. Huge cuts to school funding have put even greater pressure on budgets, forcing schools to have bigger classes while cutting mental health services. Nearly half of young people with moderate to severe mental health needs have to wait more than 18 weeks to start treatment. That is a cruel failure for children and young people. Mental health support needs the funding across the board that it deserves—for services such as NHS services and school counsellors—to guarantee that every single young person who needs support can get it when they need it.

Although funding for support is vital, the mental health crisis cannot be tackled with funding alone. It is getting worse, and more and more young people face mental ill-health. It is estimated that depression has tripled for those aged between 16 and 39. We cannot look just at the consequences; we have to look at the causes, too. Asthma, for example, is a health condition, but people do not suffer from it totally at random. If someone lives in an area of high air pollution, they are more likely to suffer from asthma. It is an individual problem, but it has social and political causes. The same is true for many mental health issues. The more stress, anxiety and trauma there is in people’s lives, the more likely they are to experience mental ill-health. For children and young people who have grown up under austerity, life is getting more stressful and less secure. That is what is driving this mental health crisis, so although funding is vital, so is building a society that nurtures people, gives them security and safety, and truly values and cherishes them.

A report presented to the United Nations in 2019 argued that the best way to tackle the global mental health crisis is to build a supportive environment, including everything from the building of good homes to secure and well-paid work. If we are to solve the mental health crisis faced by children and young people, we must build a society where basic needs are met, where young people find decent and secure employment, where housing is both affordable and liveable, where education is understood to be a right and a good in itself, and where people do not have to work every hour of the day, but instead have time to live their lives to the fullest.