Suicide

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 7 January 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:42, 7 January 2020

There's more money in the draft budget for suicide and self-harm services, to strengthen further the services that we have in schools through school counselling. And the school counselling service is a good example of how intervention of that sort can assist young people without them then needing to be referred on to further and more intensive services. Eighty seven per cent of the 11,365 young people who received counselling services in our schools last year needed no further intervention; 3 per cent of them only needed a referral on to a specialist mental health service, and that's why the draft budget invests more money in that whole-school approach, exactly for the reasons that Siân Gwenllian quite rightly points to.