Youth organisations call for recovery plan for young people’s mental health

Thirty organisations have written to the prime minister calling for a five-point recovery plan to help reduce the long-term impact of coronavirus on the mental health of young people – “both now and in the future”.  The letter is signed by Young Minds, Barnardo’s, Place2Be and Beat, as well as teacher unions and medical groups such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. It calls for a “clear plan about how to grow and develop services” and urges the government to provide immediate emergency funding to increase mental-health support, a national campaign to promote positive mental health approaches and a wellbeing support package for schools. The government has already provided an additional £5m of funding which has been welcomed, but the organisations insist “this falls well short of meeting the scale of need”.  One in eight children already has a mental health condition and those receiving treatment before the crisis are now receiving “reduced support or no support at all”. The impact of lockdown is likely to increase their needs and many more young people will need support to deal with issues such as domestic violence, loneliness and bereavement. A government spokesperson said it was “already spending record amounts to transform mental health care”. Read more here.