Every secondary school in Britain will be offered training on how to identify and help children who are suffering mental health issues amid rising concerns about cyber-bullying, Theresa May has announced.
As part of her ‘shared society’ speech at the Charity Commission yesterday morning, the prime minister said a new approach to tackling mental health problems would start with ensuring that children and young people “get the help and support they need and deserve”. This would be achieved through extra training for teachers, more online self-checking for those with concerns and a review of services for children and teenagers.
Mrs May said: “For too long mental illness has been something of a hidden injustice in our country, shrouded in a completely unacceptable stigma and dangerously disregarded as a secondary issue to physical health.
“Yet left unaddressed, it destroys lives, it separates people from each other and deepens the divisions within our society.
“Changing this goes right to the heart of our humanity; to the heart of the kind of country we are, the values we share, the attitudes we hold and our determination to come together and support each other.”
The new measures will also include a green paper on support for children and young people and a further £15 million to provide alternatives to hospital visits.
Figures show young people are affected disproportionately with over half of mental health problems starting by the age of 14 and 75% by 18, the BBC reports.
New trial approaches will aim to bolster links between schools and NHS services, while a “major thematic review”, led by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), will assess which methods are working and which are not.
Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary for Health believes that care for children and young people is currently a “black spot” and requires urgent attention as the pressures of cyber bulling and social media are a “massive worry for parents”.
The government says mental health training will be delivered by Mental Health First Aid UK to staff in a third of secondary schools in this calendar year.
