Sir, – The findings of this week’s Mental Health Commission’s interim report unfortunately came as little surprise to many of the families and young people Barnardos supports.
A large proportion of the children and young people we work with experience mental health issues; a recent internal report told us 47 per cent of those aged 11 to 18 are experiencing challenges in this area. Staff working closely with these children and young people and their families routinely describe the struggles they face trying to get appropriate mental health support to match their needs.
There needs to be additional impetus placed on ensuring greater provision and access to mental health support for children and young people who fail to reach Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service thresholds. With Bernard Gloster coming in as chief executive of the HSE, we believe there is a real opportunity to improve the current system with the development of a culture which will focus on retaining and attracting staff, a core problem to addressing current system failures. Alongside this there needs to be a child and adolescent mental health service which provides a holistic response to the needs of children young people, involving both children and young people and their parents actively in their treatment plan to ensure each child’s individual needs are met.
We know at Barnardos that childhood lasts a lifetime – and the longer children and young people go without help and support the bigger an impact it has on their current and future wellbeing and development. – Yours, etc,
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SUZANNE CONNOLLY,
CEO,
Barnardos,
Dublin 8.