Our Responsibilities to Children’s Mental Health
As the political turmoil of the UK’s general election unfolds before us, it becomes easier than ever to get caught up and distracted from the bigger picture. Regardless of who voted for whom, our government has a responsibility to
Recent studies show that, on average, at least three children in every school class have a mental health condition, while the number of children and young people arriving in A&E with a psychiatric condition has more than doubled since 2011. Commitment from every politician is required to help improve services and promote healthy mental wellbeing.
Directing Resources
Consider that one in three mental health problems in adulthood
Lately, the government’s approach to their mental wellbeing responsibilities seems to have focused on the visible problems, while those who do not seek help remain without support. Through the improvement of infrastructure and better awareness for issues faced by children and young people, we can hope to bring the balance back.
Schools and their Duty of Care
Too often, the pressure is placed on schools to support students when other services are unavailable. Schools do a fantastic job in their pastoral care, but current funding for state education has shackled them, diminishing their ability to protect both staff and students. 90% of school leaders have said that they’ve experienced an increase in students suffering from anxiety or stress. For the improvement of children and young people’s mental and emotional wellbeing, priority must be given to the way it is legislated within schools and involved in the Ofsted inspection framework.
Inpatient Care
Effort must also be made to make changes to the inpatient care at mental health hospitals. Surveys by YoungMinds found that only 43% of parents believe their child’s mental health to have improved while in hospital. While many parents and young people felt that treatments and medication choices were out of their control and that there weren’t appropriate systems in place to challenge these decisions.
YoungMinds is calling for a comprehensive charter of patients’ legal rights to be produced to increase confidence and trust in the system. They are also campaigning for the complete cessation of harmful practices. Both physical and chemical restraints, as well as solitary confinement, are still widely used as treatments. These techniques must be stopped, as they reinforce a deep culture of victim blaming and can only be seen as punishments, rather than treatment.
Our new government has a great responsibility on its shoulders to prevent the deterioration and misuse of children and young people’s mental health services. YoungMinds has stated that there is a “mental health crisis”, refusing to sit by as much of the youth of Great Britain is forced to grow up with uncertainty and anxiety holding them back.
Our new training course in partnership with YoungMinds covers advice for people working with children and young people. The course is available to buy as a standalone online training course and is also included in our EduCare for Education® e-Learning service which combines essential safeguarding and duty of care training courses with a robust reporting suite that evidences learning to inspectors.
Customers on our new Learning Platform will automatically receive the new course as soon as it is available, at no extra cost.
To find out more or request a quote, speak to one of our advisors today; call us on 01926 436 212 or complete the
