Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition’s response to the ‘Good Childhood Report 2019’
“The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition welcomes this detailed report from one of our members, The Children’s Society. The research and policy recommendations from the report are both clear and crucial, covering poverty, prevention and wellbeing measurement.
Early intervention must be prioritized. Constrained budgets have meant public services have moved away from prevention measures to support wellbeing in early years. Yet children are becoming more unhappy, as today’s report clearly shows. We welcome the Government’s recent prevention green paper and its intent, but it must go further in creating cross government action and policy.
We know that poverty has a major impact on children’s mental health. The report highlights the need to tackle poverty and the harm it does to children’s wellbeing. The focus on family financial strain and its link to depression in children shows a clear need for government action.
We strongly support the call for a national index of wellbeing. The findings here paint a stark picture of children needing far more help than they are receiving. A standard national measure is needed to identify the best ways to help children thrive.
We support the Children society’s call for decision makers to engage meaningfully with children and young people, whose voices must be heard. We look forward to working with decision makers on improving our children’s mental health and wellbeing in this way.”
Dr Pooky Knightsmith,
Interim Chair of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition
To read the full report click here
