Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 24 March 2021.
Diolch yn fawr, Dai. I'm really anxious about this situation. We know that the children's commissioner has found that about 67 per cent of our children from age 12 to 18 are suffering with some form of anxiety at the moment. And of course, being out of routine is going to cause an issue for many people, and I do hope that we'll see those levels come down now, as children go back to school.
But there will definitely be a group that will need continued support. That's why we've got a comprehensive approach now to looking at children and young people. We know that 80 per cent of problems relating to mental health start when people are children or young people, and that's why it makes sense for us to focus on this. We've got a whole-school approach, so there is significant additional funding being put into schools, and we're also extending our support to early help and enhanced support, which will be rolled out from July next year, to make sure that all of the different services are working together so that children don't bounce around the system.
A lot of that work can be undertaken by the third sector. I've been on a call, actually, this morning; we had our second meeting of the oversight and implementation group for Together for Children and Young People. One of the aspects we were looking at this morning is have we got the right workforce in place, because it's clear that we have to keep on driving up that development. So, that work is ongoing. It's happening. We probably need to do more, but, obviously, we will keep an eye. The fact that we've already injected altogether about £9 million into this area I hope should give you a degree of comfort that we're heading in the right direction.