Has there been progress in supporting children and young people’s mental health?
The mental health of babies, children and young people has been the subject of great public and policy interest in recent years.
This has been driven largely by rising numbers of children and young people reporting mental health concerns in England.
In 2022, one in six children aged seven to 16 had a mental health problem, an increase from one in nine in 2017.
For the LGA, ensuring that councils and their partners have the tools they need to support children’s mental health and emotional wellbeing is key.
Children and young people’s mental health services (CYPMHS) have long been described as the ‘Cinderella of Cinderella’ services, with young people facing delays in access to support, a postcode lottery in provision, and disjointed care.
While all groups of children and young people can face mental health problems and difficulties accessing help, those from marginalised backgrounds or with multiple or complex needs often experience greater barriers.
Historically, CYPMHS have been underfunded, which has meant that demand for support has increasingly outstripped service capacity to respond to young people’s needs.
Ongoing data gaps and issues have also made it difficult to get a complete picture of what is happening across the system.
A report by the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, commissioned by the LGA, considers the policy landscape in England over the past decade and reviews progress relating to implementation and impact. The report finds that there have been positive steps taken in recent years to improve support for children and young people with mental health problems.
NHS England’s 2015 report, ‘Future in Mind’, articulated this vision and set out an expectation for the whole system – including the NHS, local authorities, education, and youth justice system – to work together to achieve its aims.
Since then, targets and commitments have been made to expand access to services, most notably through the NHS Five Year Forward View, the NHS Long Term Plan and the Green Paper, ‘Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision’.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly slowed progress, which has placed growing pressures on NHS services because of rising need.
The commitments set out by the Government have consistently been criticised for lacking ambition and there are concerns that funding is still not reaching the frontline fast enough.
Of particular concern is a lack of early intervention and prevention support, with no clear strategy to enhance early help and a continuing decline in the public health grant.
Inequalities in access continue to persist and there is great variability between local services, with different areas getting different pots of funding for different interventions.
Although there have been a range of policy developments, there has been little tangible action on how we will achieve better mental health for children and young people.
For example, Future in Mind put children’s mental health at the fore, yet there were no accountability arrangements or targets to guide local partners.
For the Government to deliver on its proposals, we need to see the development of a robust children and young people’s mental health strategy.
This should include clear targets and outcome measures, and should set out how local partners can work together to ensure that all children and young people can live happy, healthy lives.
- The LGA-commissioned report from the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition will be available on the LGA’s website in June. Download the slides from a recent webinar on ‘Progress on children and young people’s mental health policy in England’.
