1. What priority has the Welsh Government given to the mental health of children and young people in Islwyn during COVID-19? OQ56295

Dirprwy Lywydd, I thank the Member for the question. The Welsh Government has designated children and young people’s mental health as an essential service throughout the pandemic. Aneurin Bevan University Health Board has used additional funding provided to develop a range of innovative services involving other statutory and third sector partners.

Diolch. First Minister, last week was Children's Mental Health Week. I was pleased that the Government marked it by pledging to support young people's mental health week, and I was pleased that the Welsh Labour Government marked it by pledging to support young people's mental health services. This funding could be a real lifeline for so many young people who have been struggling throughout this pandemic. First Minister, can you outline how this funding will be used and how the Welsh Government will ensure it reaches the front-line services that are delivering this support in Islwyn?

I thank Rhianon Passmore for that follow-up question, Dirprwy Lywydd. I can tell her that of the £9.4 million, £5.4 million will be used to support child and adolescent mental health services provision, and that will include in-hospital provision, including the development of age-appropriate beds within local health boards where that is necessary, but there will also be a strengthening of support in community mental health teams to provide more intensive services for young people in the community, drawing them down from in-patient admissions. The remainder of the funding, £4 million, will support the expansion of the CAMHS schools in-reach pilot programme, and that is used to develop front-line capacity in our schools. And that, Dirprwy Lywydd, is part of the whole thrust of this additional money, which is to de-escalate intervention in the lives of young people. And that, as the Member will know, was reinforced further yesterday with an announcement of a further £2.5 million to support mental health and well-being services in our further education colleges, again aimed at the well-being of our young people.

First Minister, I, too, welcome any money towards this. Obviously it's in all of our hearts and minds at the moment, the struggles that many children are going through as a result of this pandemic, as, too, the parents and families also having to juggle and realign their lives to support them. But I was just wondering, as lots of councils are doing different things across the board in South Wales East but also across Wales, how this Government is finding the examples of best practice of using online services to support our vulnerable children and reaching out to those children who need it right now and making sure that best practice is spread across all of Wales. Thank you. 

Well, Llywydd, I thank Laura Anne Jones for that question. I agree very much with the premise of it. I think it's very good that there is innovation in different parts of Wales. I know the Member will join me in congratulating the Connecting with Telehealth to Children in Hospital team at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which recently won the team of the year award of the Royal College of Psychiatrists for its development of telehealth services, and those developments are now being taken up by other health boards in different parts of Wales. And that, I think, is a very sensible way for these services to develop, encouraging local innovation and, as Laura Anne Jones says, where they're demonstrated to have success, then making sure that that success is translated into wider services in the rest of Wales. It's why we have a Welsh national young people's mental health toolkit, it's why we have cognitive behavioural therapy services available online for young people in every part of Wales, while, as I say, continuing to encourage innovation in the third sector and in statutory services in these extraordinary times.