Children and Young Peoples Mental Health Report 2018
Summary
We found out young peoples and their families experiences, when using mental health services, receiving support within an education setting and what improvements they would like in the future.
I would like continued support as opposed to feeling abandoned by health professionals
when I was at my worst.
Findings
A summary of our key findings include:
- We have received consistent feedback to suggest many young people don’t receive much information from within their schools or colleges including information about the community services which can support them. Providing easier access to advice and information for parents and young people would be very beneficial as not knowing can bring more stress to the young person and/or family. This is especially important during the long waiting period that some families are facing. 67% of parents told us they were not offered any support during this time which can be up to six months or more.
- Mindfulness and relaxation exercises seem to be a very common suggestion amongst young people and parents and the need for trained mental health workers to be present within schools and colleges.
- We are really pleased to see that the general feedback and comments about staff member’s attitudes within CAMHS have been on the whole very pleasant.
- Throughout our engagement work in 2015 we reported a number of service users have suggested that mental health needed to be taught in schools and colleges. This was suggested as a way to develop young people’s awareness and understanding. We have received similar feedback through this year’s engagement, but we are pleased to report that during July 2018 it was announced by the Department of Education that schools will teach about good physical health and mental health with the view to becoming compulsory within all schools by 2020.
Next Steps
We have shared this report with Darlington Clinical Commissioning Group, Tees, Esk & Wear valley NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV) and Darlington Borough Council.
“We have included your key findings in the Local Transformation Plan refresh (as
you are aware) and we feel that the refresh and associated planned actions cover
all of the key areas – schools, training, communication etc.
To ensure we link all of this work together, we would like to invite Healthwatch
to be part of the Local Transformation Plan core group.”
Downloads
Please get in touch if you require this information in an alternative format or if you have any questions, we would love to hear from you.
