The Mental Health and Well-Being of Young People

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:32 pm on 2 December 2020.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 2:32, 2 December 2020

Diolch yn fawr, Delyth. Just to make it clear that we already spend more on mental health than any other aspect of the health service—£700 million a year. And of course, in response to COVID we've topped that up by almost £10 million, to make sure that we are responding to the pressures that we know in particular are there amongst young people. We've heard the information that's come from the Children's Commissioner for Wales, but also the Youth Parliament has given us some very useful insights into the levels of anxiety that young people are facing. And that's why what we've done is to really focus attention in particular on, first of all, that whole-school approach, where we've given an additional £5 million this year, to make sure that we can give that really early intervention, to stop the problems from accumulating. And also now what we're doing is we're trying to make sure that that whole-school approach fits into a broader whole-systems approach, so that it can connect with the NHS. The key thing as far as I'm concerned, and certainly the information that we've got from the Wolfson centre, which is the expert centre in Cardiff University, which specialises in the mental health of young people, is that they are telling us that 80 per cent of the problems in relation to mental health start when people are young or when they're children. So, certainly, that is something that we're looking at, to make sure that we put that emphasis in the right place, with very early intervention, tier 0 and tier 1 support.