We hosted a fringe event at Labour鈥檚 autumn conference, bringing together leading voices from the mental health, youth support and education sectors to discuss their change agenda for children and young people鈥檚 mental health, to a packed-out audience,聽chaired by our Vice President Luciana Berger.

Mental health support in school

The panel examined Labour鈥檚 existing commitments for mental health professionals in schools and the roll out of youth future hubs. They also explored opportunities for wider support, including extending counselling provision to students in FE colleges and addressing mental health as a barrier to young people's employment.

Lisa Morrison Coulthard, our Director of Professional Standards, Policy and Research, welcomed the Government鈥檚 commitment to proving mental professionals in schools, "To urgently address the missing middle 鈥� the thousands of children and young people who need more intensive support that is currently provided through mental health support teams but do not require the higher tired support of CAMHs鈥�.聽

She made a robust case for utlising the skills of our members to deliver this ambition, saying, "Half of our 19,000 specialist children and young people (CYP) counsellors have the capacity to take on more paid work; on average this works out at an extra five clients per week.

"Extrapolating these figures suggests that our registered and accredited members alone are trained and available to work with over 51,000 additional young people per week鈥�.

Lisa drew on our recent analysis undertaken by Public First to highlight that, "Addressing the missing middle of support in schools will deliver eight times the cost of the investment, rising to ten-fold return on investment for primary school-age children"

Government needs to be bold and decisive

Laura Bunt, CEO of Young Minds, said, "Children and young people鈥檚 mental health is a defining issue we are facing with month on month record breaking referrals where long waits have become the norm鈥�. She called on Government to be 鈥渂old and decisive鈥� in their response saying, 鈥淲e can鈥檛 just expect current services to meet these challenges 鈥� we need an urgent response from Government, coproduced by young people themselves鈥�.

Laura called on Government to ensure the new youth future hubs, which are likely to be managed by the Home Office in their bid to tackle knife crime, need to retain a central focus on delivering accessible mental health support.

Barrier to employment聽

Barry Fletcher, CEO, Youth Futures Foundation said that delivering appropriate mental health support, 鈥淐an deliver significant economic benefits by also being targeted to support the 193,000 young people who cite mental health as a key barrier to finding employment鈥�. 聽

Drawing on recent analysis by Youth Futures, Barry also said that, 鈥淛oining up mental health and youth employment support could deliver 拢69bn to the UK economy鈥�.

David Hughes CBE, CEO Association of Colleges, highlighted the scale of the mental health crisis facing FE colleges, saying, 鈥淭wo-thirds of colleges each recorded more than five attempted suicides within the previous 12 months and almost a third of colleges reported between 10 and 14 attempted suicides within the last year鈥�.

鈥�16 to 19-year-olds often miss out on mental health support, as the focus tends to be on schools and universities鈥�.

He called on Government to ensure colleges are given appropriate resources to manage growing demand.

Need for clear and joined up action聽

In summary our chair, Luciana Berger, reaffirmed the need for clear and joined up action from Government, including appropriate and accessible support for parents as well as young people. She said this was a key feature of the mental health review she has led on behalf of Sir Kier Starmer.

As well as delivering this event we'll use the conference to meet and engage with new Ministers and new MPs on the importance of counselling profession to deliver Labour鈥檚 mental health policies.

We're attending the three main party conferences to champion the critical role of our members across the political landscape.