How the Scottish Government turns its back on young people at their most vulnerable – Sarah Boyack MP

It’s time to act on the provision of mental health services and give young people the support they need, when they need it, writes Sarah Boyack MP.

Sarah Boyack says young people with mental health challenges should not have to put their life on hold while waiting for help

Recently, with budget shortfalls to challenge and woeful underfunding across a range of services to deal with, it is often easy to become focused on what matters immediately to us: annoying potholes, council tax rises and cuts in local services.

But one group is too often overlooked as we address these pressing issues of the day. Last week Childline reported a sharp increase in the number of young people contacting them about mental health issues, with counselling sessions increasing in Scotland, up by 90 per cent from three years ago. NSPCC Scotland stated that children described self-harming, having suicidal feelings, and cited worries about mental health, family relationships and problems at school and college. Simply put, many young people are struggling and they are not getting the support they need.

It’s shocking that over 5,000 children across Scotland waited more than 18 weeks to be seen by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in 2019. This figure is bad enough but the Lothians has the worst record in Scotland. Between October and December, an appalling 51.6 per cent of young people waiting for CAMHS had been waiting for more than 18 weeks in the Lothians, far ahead of Tayside in second place at 42.6 per cent. A troubling 557 children had waited over a year.

These indefensible statistics display a failure to fund this vital resource which has, sadly, become a crisis service, only able to respond to the most serious and urgent of mental health cases. When our young people are at their most vulnerable, the Scottish Government turns its back on them by failing to provide the services they need.

We must grasp the nettle and acknowledge the implications of insufficient mental health funding, which fails year-on-year to match increased demand. These young people are the future of the country, and we must provide them with the care they need to help equip them for the next steps in their lives. They deserve nothing less.

I had the privilege of meeting Edinburgh apprentices last week and saw a tremendous range of opportunities in two very different examples of the world of work. A transport group and investment firm both provide fantastic opportunities for young people, harnessing their motivation, talent, skills and knowledge. These ambitious apprentices came from a broad range of backgrounds. But some had overcome personal adversity, bringing a unique perspective to their work and demonstrating that this was not a barrier to success. On the contrary, their resilience was seen as an indicator of their determination and was backed by a corporate commitment to help them succeed.

The Scottish Government has promised an additional £28m for mental health and CAMHS for 2020-21, rising from £61m to £89m, but it’s critical that this resource is targeted to eliminate the unacceptable times young people have to wait to get the support they need. In Lothian, the CAMHS backlog is unacceptable. We must ensure that funding is allocated more fairly and according to need, and ensure we continue to hold the Government to account for its failings.

In the meantime, we can also support and encourage our young people. We must remind them they are valued, and that having experienced a mental health challenge does not mean the end of the road. Instead, with the right support, it can become a constructive foundation upon which to build their future, make their way in life and find their route to success. But that support must be when they need it, not a wait that puts their life on hold.

Sarah Boyack is a Scottish Labour MSP for Lothian and the party’s local government spokesperson