The House of Commons’ education committee focused on mental health on Tuesday during its continued inquiry into the impact of Covid-19 on education and children’s services. Giving evidence were the recently appointed Youth Mental Health Ambassador Dr Alex George, Dr Bernadka Dubicka from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Emma Thomas from YoungMinds, and Catherine Roche from Place2Be.
Chair of the committee, Robert Halfon MP, began the session by listing the data that showed an increase in rising concerns around mental health and wellbeing. For example, the NHS’s digital Mental Health Survey for Children and Young People, which found that mental disorders have increased from one in nine in 2017 to one in six in 2020. Similarly, digital mental health service for children and young people, Kooth, found in June last year that among 11 to 25 year olds, there was an increase of 161% in sleep issues, 63% in loneliness, 27% in self-harm, compared to 2019.
In considering the impact of lockdowns and assessing mental health and wellbeing among children and young people, all the experts emphasised the importance of data gathering, as well as the crisis in mental health that threatens to be exacerbated by the pandemic. In describing his new role, Dr Alex George said he hoped to work alongside experts to give young people a voice, ‘not just this time in the pandemic and the transition back to school but also in the ongoing months and years.’ He spoke about the need for greater education around mental health in schools, as well as additional support to destigmatise mental health, and make it more normal for young people to speak about it.
Catherine Roche echoed the point about challenges beyond the pandemic, but that the lockdown has shone a spotlight on the need that is there. The national statistics that Robert Halfon listed, she said, were already beginning to play out in practice on the ground when schools returned in September, and what is now needed is a whole-school approach to address these issues early on.
This was reiterated by Emma Thomas, who identified two key groups. The first are those with existing mental health needs, with research from YoungMinds showing that this group had lost during the pandemic around 50% of the usual support they rely upon. The second cohort who have had a natural response of anxiety and distress to the pandemic, and the challenge for this group is ‘how we mitigate the risks of those young people developing more of a life-lasting impact in terms of developing mental health conditions.’ She concluded by saying ‘it is very important to see the two levels of need and how we are supporting those with existing mental health conditions and preventing escalation of need among the other group.’
In addressing these challenges, Dr Bernadka Dubicka highlighted the need for better data gathering. She said that there was a child mental health crisis prior to the pandemic, and that she had been calling on the Government ‘to commit to regular prevalence surveys so we can map out exactly what is happening to our children and young people’. She added that when asked about the factors driving mental health concerns, too often mental health practitioners have to speculate due to the lack of data.
Mental health has been a key part of Schools North East’s policy work since the establishment of the only school-led mental health commission Healthy MindED 2016. This year’s Healthy MindED Conference will take place virtually on the 12th and 13th of May, looking at what the data tells us about the landscape of mental health for children and young people. Dr Alex George told the committee that it was key to listen to young people, which too often was left out of studies and evidence. Our conference will focus then on how schools can be best supported to enable their students to talk openly about mental health and wellbeing. To find out more about our Healthy MindED Conference 2021, please visit our website at the following link.
