Only 6% of spend on mental health services is directed towards children and adolescents despite strong evidence that 50% of lifetime mental illnesses, excluding dementia, start by the age of 14.
There has been a growing public and political awareness of the difficulties children, young people and their families have in accessing the right services, and support to help them to get better. This is after the cross-party health select committee found in November that the mental health system for children and young people (Camhs) was beset by serious, deeply ingrained problems. Unacceptable variations in quality of services, access and waiting times were seen across the country and valuable early help services were found to be dependent on unstable and reducing funding streams. It is estimated that one in 10 children aged between five and 16 are experiencing poor mental health, and there is plenty of evidence that early action minimises the long-term impact of issues such as anxiety, depression or eating disorders.
[For more of this story, written by Alison O'Sullivan, go to http://www.theguardian.com/soc...-child-mental-health]
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