Guildford statue gets mental health message
It's as The Children's Society raises awareness of issues with mental health support
A new poll by leading children’s charity, The Children’s Society, highlights the growing shortfall in young people’s mental health support, with two in five parents (41%) in the South East who sought help for their child reporting “that they did not receive the support they needed’, leaving thousands of children stuck in limbo and at risk of escalating into a full-blown crisis.
As part of Children's Mental Health Week (3-9 February) The Children’s Society is launching a bold new initiative to highlight these alarming findings. By transforming iconic statues across the country with messages about waiting for mental health support, The Children's Society wants to get across that these delays aren't just statistics - they are children's lives on hold.
In Guildford they have transformed the Alice Through the Looking Glass statue with the message: Lost in the system: Surrey’s children can’t wait months for mental health support. Statues stand still. Childhoods can’t.
The survey of 3,000 parents in England and Wales, whose children are aged 4-17, reveals a system struggling to keep pace with soaring demand: 45% of parents said their child had independently sought mental health support, yet over a third (36%) of these requests went unmet.
Some of these children and young people experience emotional or mental health issues that will not meet the current threshold and criteria for specialist mental health support. The Children’s Society warns that the overstretched thresholds for specialist services and fragmented early intervention programmes are failing families, but stresses that targeted investment could significantly improve the situation and make a real difference for children and young people.
Mark Russell, Chief Executive of The Children’s Society said: “Parents aren’t asking for miracles – they’re asking for basic support before problems snowball but instead are met with barriers and delays. Far too many children are counting down the days to crisis this winter - their childhoods are hanging in the balance. Children can’t wait for weeks or months for treatment, they need immediate help before their issues hit crisis point. We must act now to ensure every child has access to the mental health care they need.”
The Children’s Society believes there needs to be more funding for early support services across the country - where young people can build resilience, work through their feelings, learn to cope with the stresses of growing up so that that no child is left without the support they need.
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