Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:49 pm on 2 December 2020.
Thank you for that, Minister. I think the lack of money is one of the root causes of many mental health problems, as we know.
I'd like to talk to you about the mental health of children and young people. Schools act as a leveller, a level playing field, where, wherever possible, children are equal in that environment in terms of equipment, the clothes they wear, access to information. As you're already aware, young people have been going off in droves in whole year groups recently, especially across my region in certain council areas, so they're heavily reliant on home schooling. I'm concerned, following a conversation I had with one of the headteachers of a comprehensive school in my region, that she highlighted the fact that a number of children still couldn't access a device at home to enable them to do online learning and their lessons at home. This clearly is very worrying and has a mental health impact on those children. The Government, to be fair, has given lots of money to councils in order for them to get devices to children, but they're still, obviously, not getting to the right children, or to enough children, as the headteacher outlined to me yesterday, and this is a barrier to them getting the home-school learning that they need when they're off, obviously for health reasons and safety reasons. Please could you look into this, Minister, alongside the education Minister, as, clearly, pupils' mental health and anxiety will be affected because of this? Thank you.