We welcome the publication of Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision: a Green Paper, which will build on existing work to improve children and young people’s mental health. The sector has to come together and seize the opportunities within this Green Paper and use them to maximum benefit.
There has already been considerable engagement within the sector; so much of the content around schools/colleges and mental health isn’t really a surprise. However, we want to congratulate Government on addressing this important issue which has been discussed for many years, but has never really been acted on in this way.
In a similar vein is the commitment in the Green Paper to set up a new partnership, which will look at the support for the mental health of young people aged 16-25 years. Both of these issues are areas we as a Coalition and our members individually have been campaigning on, for many years.
The children and young people’s mental health system brings together a range of different services and agencies such as specialist mental health services, other NHS services, social care, public health, education, voluntary sector and the justice system. We are pleased to see that the focus isn’t just on schools, but looks at the wider system to some extent as well, and more specifically about improving access to specialist mental health services.
We are keen to work collaboratively with the whole system that makes up children and young people’s mental health to ensure that these policy areas are fully implemented for the benefit of all our children and young people.
Prof Dame Sue Bailey, Chair,
Dr Pooky Knightsmith, Vice Chair
Paula Lavis, Strategic Lead
