Future Minds Campaign

In the face of a major and growing crisis in children and young people’s mental health, we have joined forces with Centre for Mental Health, the Centre for Young Lives, and YoungMinds, with the support of the Prudence Trust – to call on the Government to deliver urgent reform and investment, ahead of the major long- term policy decisions that will be taken in the forthcoming Spending Review and 10 Year Plan for Health in England.

Our report, Future Minds: Why investing in children’s mental health will unlock economic growth highlights the long-term economic benefits of investing in measures to support children and young people’s mental health. The research estimates that the long-term impact of mental health problems in childhood costs the UK over £1 trillion in lifetime lost earnings. The report recommends immediate and scalable steps the Government can take to close the treatment gap and provide earlier support that prevents problems from escalating:

  1. Increase investment in children and young people’s mental health services, with a commitment to meet 70% of diagnosable need by the end of this Parliament
  2. The full roll out of Mental Health Support Teams by the end of this Parliament, with a commitment to adapt the model to meet a broader range of need
  3. The delivery of open access mental health services for children and young people in every community, initially through the Young Futures programme
  4. A comprehensive children and young people’s mental health workforce plan
  5. An independent Government-commissioned review to examine the causes of the rise
    in prevalence in children and young people’s mental health
  6. Increase council funding to support investment in prevention and early intervention
Read the report here


Future Minds: Why investing in children’s mental health will unlock economic growth is endorsed by the following organisations.

To note that the policy calls in this document represent the collective views of those who have endorsed, but do not necessarily fully reflect the individual positions of each organisation.