9. Short Debate: 'Listen to us. Support us.': The need to ensure access for young people to mental health support

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:08 pm on 3 November 2021.

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Photo of Rhun ap Iorwerth Rhun ap Iorwerth Plaid Cymru 6:08, 3 November 2021

(Translated)

I'm not the first to ask these questions, of course, but it is important that we do look for new ways of reaching out to young people, and to do that consistently. The Welsh Youth Parliament did excellent work in this area, we have to say, a year ago, in their report 'Let's talk about mental health'. Only half of the parents or guardians who responded said that they were confident in terms of who to refer a young person to. Thirty-seven young people said that they'd had to wait between a month and a year to have support. The Mind charity also published a very important report after the first months of the pandemic back in June last year, if I remember rightly, looking at how the pandemic was affecting mental health, and that found that two thirds of young people said that their mental health had deteriorated during the pandemic. That's a statistic that shouldn't surprise any of us. We know how much stress the pandemic has imposed on people.