I'm speaking this afternoon in my capacity as Chair of the Assembly's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've recently undertaken a comprehensive inquiry into the emotional and mental health of children and young people in Wales. Tomorrow, we will hold our final oral evidence session, hearing from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services and the Cabinet Secretary for Education. We are aiming to report before Easter this year, so I will avoid pre-empting our conclusions and recommendations in my contribution today.

However, I wanted to draw Members' attention to the valuable evidence we have taken on this subject in recent months, and the particular emphasis that has been placed on the importance of effective preventative work by expert stakeholders, front-line staff and children and young people themselves. We began our inquiry last summer.

The first thing we did was to visit settings that are providing support to children and young people at opposite ends of the spectrum of need. While some of us visited Wales's two in-patient units, which provide support for those suffering the most acute mental ill health and requiring the most specialist of support, others visited Ysgol Pen y Bryn in Colwyn Bay, a primary school that has embedded mindfulness across its primary and junior school teaching. While visiting Ysgol Pen y Bryn, Members saw first-hand what can be achieved in terms of children's resilience if a whole-school approach is adopted that promotes well-being and good mental health for all pupils from an early age. Children as young as six told us that mindfulness helped them when they were worried, nervous or anxious. In contrast, the young people with whom we spoke in Tŷ Llidiard, the unit for children and young people in south Wales who require in-patient care, told us that more needed to be done to raise awareness about mental health and to empower young people to talk about their concerns. They told us that they'd been suffering with mental health problems for a long time before they had access to any form of support, specialist or otherwise.

During the course of our evidence gathering, it has become clear that school settings are key to promoting emotional well-being and good mental health. There is a strong consensus that by addressing issues as early as possible, before matters become serious enough to merit specialist intervention, significant deterioration in mental well-being can be avoided. We heard that if support is to be truly preventative in nature, we need to make sure that children and young people can speak openly about their emotional well-being and know where to turn if they have concerns about themselves or others. The opportunities afforded by the reform of the curriculum in Wales have been raised by almost every witness.

Nevertheless, it is also clear that a step change is needed to realise this ambition. The evidence we've heard demonstrates that, despite an overarching desire to see education, health and social care working more closely to align their support, in practice, this has yet to be implemented to the degree necessary. Despite the efforts of organisations such as the Samaritans to roll out support such as the DEAL project—Developing Emotional Awareness and Listening—too many children find themselves without the tools they need to enable them to respond with resilience to the pressures that life throws at them from an increasingly early age. As Dr Liz Gregory, a consultant clinical psychologist, told us, too often when we have concerns about the mental health of our children, we turn to an adult model of care. This fails to recognise the inherent vulnerability and lack of control children have over their own lives at such a relatively early stage in their life journey.

In closing, I want to note that, as a committee, we have shone a light on this topic over the last six months, with the aim of reforming a system that has, for too long, relied on children and young people reaching a point where treatment and medical intervention is needed before support is provided. When we report later this term, we will focus on the steps we need to take to reverse this, to encourage good mental health and well-being so that our children and young people are enabled to discuss their emotions without fear of stigma and to ensure they have the tools they need to face pressures and challenges with resilience and confidence. Thank you.