Equality of access, sustained investment, and a supported workforce: what we need from a national mental health strategy

These are among the recommendations made by Children in Scotland and members of its children and young people’s advisory group, Changing our World, in response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on a new national strategy for mental health and wellbeing.

The Strategy will guide the work that the government, and partners, will do to improve mental health and wellbeing in Scotland until 2027, but will also set out a longer-term approach to improving mental health and wellbeing in Scotland.

It will include clear outcomes, and a shared approach for how to achieve them, that will measure what difference is being made in areas including:

• Addressing the underlying reasons behind poor mental health
• Creating conditions for people to thrive
• Challenging stigma around mental health, and
• Providing a range of specialist help and support for mental health.

An aim of the Strategy is also to guide how support is provided to those with a role in improving and supporting people’s mental health and wellbeing.

Focusing on ways to improve the types and availability of mental health and wellbeing support, members of Changing our World have called for improvements including:

• Better facilities in schools to support mental health: counsellors who are qualified to address any issue children and young people may have, and more permanent teachers
• Making sure that organisations and services that provide support have reliable and sufficient funding.

Children in Scotland, along with its members, has also called for investment in mental health prevention and early intervention for children and young people to stop problems deteriorating to the extent they require specialist CAMHS services, and stated that this must include:

• Targeted support for groups at risk of poorer mental health
• Wider, year-round access to mental health-improving universal opportunities such as sport, youth work, play and the arts
• Perinatal mental health/family support
• Improving equal access to support for children and young people all over Scotland, no matter where they live
• Counselling, peer support and other talking therapies.

The organisation also wants the government to make every effort to reduce waiting times for accessing support and make it easier for children and young people to get CAMHS appointments.

Children in Scotland's Head of Policy, Projects and Participation, Amy Woodhouse, said:

“We greatly support the outcome of ensuring that ‘there is no wrong door’ when trying to access support as we hope that this will ensure that no child or young person is unable to access support through being passed from service to service.

“We welcome the recognition of the societal determinants of mental health in the draft strategy, and particularly embrace and welcome the aim of reducing stigma and discrimination in society, as experiencing these has a highly detrimental impact upon mental health and wellbeing.

“We would recommend that the government supports schools to include teaching about equalities and mental health issues in PSE classes, and believe these classes can and should provide honest, non-judgmental opportunities to discuss issues such as health and wellbeing.

“We also believe that in its efforts to improve mental health and wellbeing for all, the Scottish Government must also focus on bolstering and enhancing the current support that is available. We have heard from the children and young people we work with and our member organisations that at present support is extremely difficult to access, so we would want to see better funding for and increased availability of the necessary support.”

Children in Scotland also welcomes the aim within the draft Strategy of improving the diversity of the mental health workforce and leadership, an important issue for many of the children and young people the organisation works with, and calls for enhanced support for the workforce to include:

• Predictable and adequate funding
• Ensuring that staff have time for training and development
• Support for their own mental health and wellbeing, such as access to counselling or other services.

Supporting children and young people’s mental health is a key focus of Children in Scotland’s 2021-26 Manifesto.

Health and Wellbeing calls include:

• Targeted support for groups at risk of poorer mental health
• Wider, year-round access to mental health-improving universal opportunities such as sport, youth work, play and the arts
• Perinatal mental health/family support
• Counselling, peer support and other talking therapies.

For more information, contact Amy Woodhouse, awoodhouse@childreninscotland.org.uk