Appendix 11: Summary of the engagement session on mental health
Mental health session
In the sessions on 11 July we met with a CAMHS psychiatrist, a SENCO and a Head of Pastoral Support from a mainstream secondary school, and the Inclusion Manager and Home School Link Worker from a special secondary school.
Participants observed a rising prevalence and severity of mental health problems, including self-harm and eating disorders. Staff from the mainstream school reported multiple suicide attempts on the school site, with long waits for an ambulance and little follow-up support given. They told us that the local CAMHS service had a 12-18 month waiting list and that the school was funding additional pastoral support from other parts of its budget. However, we heard that school counsellors are so inundated that they can only triage students. Their support is also limited to term time, meaning that students’ conditions can deteriorate over school holidays.
The CAMHS psychiatrist suggested that greater awareness was one reason for growing demand on services, as misbehaviour was increasingly being seen as a result of unmet mental health needs. They argued that mental health problems are too often allowed to escalate to crisis point. Instead, there should be a focus on prevention and early intervention with greater investment in schemes such as youth clubs which help young people to build resilience and provide them with support networks. It was further suggested that the police, schools and GPs too often fail to identify mental ill health in young people from ethnic minority backgrounds and that when they do families are sometimes unsupportive because of cultural stigma.
Participants agreed that the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns had exacerbated mental ill health, leaving young people feeling like they lack control over their lives and depriving them of vital social interaction and community support networks.
We heard of young people waiting two to three years for autism or ADHD diagnoses, leaving their behaviour and educational attainment deteriorating while they wait for support or treatment. One young person waiting more than a year for an ADHD diagnosis had been expelled from school and had to have two live-in support workers. The CAMHS psychiatrist felt that a timely diagnosis and medication could have prevented this, providing a better outcome for the young person while saving money.
Participants lamented that support systems for children in care or who have been adopted are often very slow moving, with social workers not always available. There are long waiting lists for post-adoption trauma support and post-adoption teams are asking untrained school counsellors to do life story work with children, which they do not feel qualified to do. More broadly, support is siloed between local authorities and NHS trusts.