4. Will the First Minister outline how the Welsh Government is working to develop emotional resilience in children and young people in Wales? OAQ(5)0540(FM)

Yes. We are working collaboratively across portfolios, including education, health, and children and communities, to improve the well-being of children and young people and to support them to develop emotional resilience.

First Minister, you will be aware of my recent short debate on the importance of ensuring that resilience in our children and young people is developed long before a young person needs specialist child and adolescent mental health services. The Together for Children and Young People programme includes very welcome work streams to promote universal resilience, including work in our schools and linked to the ongoing work the Government is doing on adverse childhood experiences. But, as you've highlighted, the Cabinet Secretary for health is responsible for the Together for Children and Young People programme, while the Cabinet Secretaries for education and children are responsible for the other two areas respectively, which does raise questions for me as to how this work is being taken forward in a joined-up way across Government. Will you personally look at this issue, First Minister, and commit to ensuring that the work to deliver on Together for Children and Young People is taken forward with urgency in a genuinely cross-cutting way across Government?

I can say that discussions have been held between the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the Cabinet Secretary for health on how education and CAMHS joint working can be improved. This is not the sole responsibility of one Minister; I understand that. We know that, in working on a cross-portfolio basis, then we can of course get the greatest impact and the best results. We do recognise that health and education are very much linked, and so officials have also been instructed to work together to consider different approaches to support the mental health and well-being of our children and young people.

First Minister, one thing that can be done is to develop more mindfulness practice in schools. The Cabinet Secretary for Education visited Ysgol Pen-y-Bryn in Colwyn Bay in my own constituency late last year, where she met some of the children and staff in the school that had been practising mindfulness, and they spoke passionately about the impact of mindfulness in their lives in helping them to be able to deal with what can be difficult situations, whether in school or at home in their family. So, I wonder what work the Welsh Government is doing to look at mindfulness and whether this can be something that can be introduced more widely into our education sector.

It is something that we’re considering actively, and something we discussed at length before the election last year. There is no greater advocate for mindfulness than the Cabinet Secretary for economy. I confess, when he raised it with me initially I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. I’m fully educated and informed now, I can promise you.

But, yes, I think it is hugely important that we consider new approaches to helping young people to deal with pressures that didn’t exist when I was that age. The pressures of social media—when you went home, that was it; you weren’t followed around the place online with the bullying that can sometimes lead to and the pressures to conform that can sometimes lead to. So, new approaches have to be used in order to deal with new problems.