Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what specific measures they are taking to prevent self-harming in very young children.

The Government is committed to preventing self-harm among children and young people of all ages. In 2017 Public Health England introduced the Rise Above programme that offers advice to young people on dealing with difficult emotions and situations that can lead to problems such as stress, bullying and self-harm.

The current Healthy Child Programme (from 0-5 years old) aims to support early identification of problems with an emphasis on support for mothers and fathers or partners to provide sensitive and attuned parenting.

On 17 June 2019, it was announced that tailored advice will be provided to parents on supporting their children’s mental health and well-being by 2020 through the ‘Every Mind Matters’ campaign. This will include information on subjects such as stress, screen time, online bullying, body image and self-harm.

Ministers wrote to social media and internet providers on 26 January to express concern about suicide and self-harm content. The companies have committed to increasing their efforts by establishing and funding a strategic partnership with the Samaritans to tackle this content and support vulnerable users of their platforms.