Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:55 pm on 14 January 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:55, 14 January 2020

I thank the Member for that important question. He will have seen that, in the draft budget published on 16 December, there is a doubling of the budget for mental health support in our schools in Wales; partly a response to the report of the health committee published earlier in this Assembly term. We want to make sure not only that we strengthen the counselling services that we currently provide, but we extend the age range of them as well and we extend their availability down the age range so that it's available to young people earlier in their school career, and when it may be possible to intervene in a way that will prevent problems from developing into the future. I think I managed to quote some figures last week in the Chamber that showed that 87 per cent of those young people who received school counselling didn't require any further intervention, and I think that is a real endorsement of the strategy that, right round this Chamber, Members have advocated in relation to children's mental health; that we get in early, we aim to prevent, and we don't draw young people into the more serious part of the system when we're able to provide more mainstream everyday services to which there is less stigma attached and more effect in their lives.