One Fifth of Children Refused Mental Health Treatment
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Mental health is a huge issue all around the world, and having the right services in place is absolutely vital. According to the NSPCC, more than one fifth of children referred to mental health services in England have been refused any help or treatment. This equates to nearly 40,000 people – an astonishing number, particularly as young people are often very vulnerable, so having treatment sooner can be highly beneficial in the long term.
The main reason for this appears to be that some children do not meet the requirements put in place to be eligible to receive treatment from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Young people are referred to this service when they are not coping well. They can provide help for self-harm, depression, eating disorders or any other matter that is affecting a person mentally.
Peter Wanless, Chief Executive of NSPCC, stated that mental health treatment needs to be a “national priority” to prevent “creating a time bomb of mental health problems”. There is no doubt that more and more young people are coming out about their mental health to services such as ChildLine (receiving 100 calls a week last year). Therefore, there needs to be other services in place to help deal successfully with such a problem, instead of turning people in need away.