Mental Health: Children

(asked on 19th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the mental health of children (a) living in domestic circumstances of economic insecurity, (b) from ethnically diverse and migrant communities and (c) who have (i) experienced physical, emotional or sexual abuse and (ii) witnessed that abuse of a member of their household during the outbreak.


Answered by
Nadine Dorries Portrait
Nadine Dorries
This question was answered on 3rd November 2020

The recently published ‘Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2020: Wave 1 follow up to the 2017 survey’ reported several impacts to mental health for different groups of children. Children from white ethnic background appeared to have experienced a statistically significant increase in rates of probable mental disorder since 2017.

The survey also reported that increased financial strain is associated with child mental health. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the increases of probably mental disorders in 5- to 16-year olds by neighbourhood-level deprivation between 2017 and 2020.

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