Government 'fails to deliver' on youth mental health, report says

Vivienne Clarke

The Government is failing to deliver on its commitment to youth mental health while the homelessness crisis affecting children is “long past a crisis point”, according to a children’s advocacy group.

The Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA) published its 15th annual report card which evaluates and grades the Government's progress on actions for children. It found that a “persistent” lack of action and progress on commitments to marginalised and vulnerable children has resulted in “deepening inequalities”.

Youth mental health received an E, the lowest grade, for the second year in a row with the report describing recent reports on the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (Camhs) as “the tip of the iceberg of serious failings”.

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Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Tanya Ward, chief executive of the CRA, acknowledged the Government had made progress “across the board”.

“The Government gets an A in relation to online safety because they've kind of grasped the nettle of regulating online platforms,” she said.

“There is huge public support for that. And they've initiated legislation to establish an online safety commissioner and that online safety commission will have teeth. They'll be able to regulate the platforms, children will be able to make complaints.

“The Government gets a B+ as well, the highest grade actually, we've ever given the Government for early childhood care and education. And the reason behind that is, Ireland, alongside the UK, has some of the highest child care costs.

“What you see in the last year is the Government finding a way to give core grants to providers to make sure they can keep the doors open, trying to help with the cost of child care for parents and also, you know, getting ahead of itself and investing in child care as well.

“So it's a good year from that perspective. But if you look at where the Government is struggling, I think one of the major areas is housing and it is actually contributing to our child poverty statistics, because even in the last year, nearly another 30,000 people are in the most serious form of deprivation and poverty.

“And what we see in the last year is that the numbers of children in homeless accommodation had increased to 3,442 by the end of last year, and that figure would have been far higher if the Government hadn't introduced rent freezes and the eviction ban. So that's telling us that that's something the Government needs to retain while it tries to resolve the situation with affordable housing and social housing as well.”

However, the Government received an E grade in relation to youth mental health. This was due to the fact that children were still being admitted to adult psychiatric units. While there had been a “significant fall” in the numbers of children being admitted to adult units, children were still being admitted to such units.

“In our view, they shouldn't be there. There should be youth facilities with people trained to work with children and young people. But it is concerning that over the same period, what we're seeing is that there's nearly a doubling of the numbers of children waiting for services.

“And what concerns us greatly, as we know for those children, what's happening for them at home, as they probably have stopped going to school, they've probably stopped engaging with their friends. They may be self-harming, they could have an eating disorder, could be deteriorating.

“We know that mental health issues, they start in childhood and your teenage years. And if you don't intervene in that period, it's something you could be dealing with for the rest of your life.”