Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 5 October 2021.
I thank the Member for that question. As others will have realised in listening to it, it is a complex area in which the difficulties that some young people face and experience can be masked by coping techniques that they develop for themselves, and where it isn't always easy for members of staff to identify the difficulties that a young person is experiencing. I'm very pleased to confirm, again, Llywydd, that, as a result of the report into the in-reach pilot in schools—the CAMHS in-reach pilot—that the Government has found the funding to extend that pilot to all local authorities in Wales. Part of what the pilot does is to try and make sure that front-line staff, who are not themselves experts, as they can't be expected to be, in every aspect of a child's mental health or development, have better training so that they are aware of the sorts of issues that Mr Isherwood has mentioned, and, where they feel that those needs require further and more expert forms of help, that they are able to make sure that those forms of help are quickly mobilised for that young person. So, I do think that the in-reach scheme, which was powerfully endorsed in that interim report, does have some of the answers to the dilemmas that the question raised, while recognising the complexities—the genuine complexities—there are in being able to respond to such a wide variety of needs.