Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:41 pm on 20 January 2021.
I recognise that we must intervene at an early stage, because from my understanding, 80 per cent of mental health problems begin to occur when people are children or young people. Therefore, it makes sense for us to focus any additional funding in that area, and that's exactly what we're doing. We are ensuring that £9.4 million of additional funding is provided directly to assist young people. Some of that will be provided through schools, but there is also additional work being done to ensure that we introduce not only CAMHS in schools—. At the moment, they're pilots, but we hope that once we know what the outcomes of those pilots are, we will then be able to see that rolled out across Wales. So, that is a very practical step that we know works. We want to see that developed across Wales. But, also, there is the national early help and enhanced support framework group, and this is something that we have seen that has worked very well in the Gwent area. I'm very eager to see that programme being rolled out throughout Wales. So, those are the two things we're doing directly to assist young people.