63% of Sheffield’s young people said that they struggled more than usual with their mental health during lockdown.
Sheffield City Council has taken to Twitter to emphasise their one-year Covid recovery plan which includes plans to support mental health in schools – especially as February 7th-13th 2022 marks Children’s Mental Health Week.
The plan can be found here and details how the council will work to rebuild the city after the pandemic.
On children’s mental health, the plan states: “We will provide ‘trauma-informed’ training to all schools to help them identify and support the growing mental health needs in children and young people”.
This comes in addition to the national increase of funding for mental health services. In June, £40 million was allocated to address the impact of Covid-19 on children and young people’s mental health across the country.
The plan will be welcomed by those currently accessing mental health services. Kerry Meredith, 50, a primary school teacher from Sheffield, has a 16 year old son who has been attending CAHMS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services) since he was twelve. He has been re-diagnosed several times.
She said: “We haven’t had a good experience at all. Misdiagnoses on several occasions, they wanted to pigeonhole and medicate him as soon as they diagnosed him.
“There wasn’t much communication from them and we didn’t receive any kind of healthcare plan. We feel very unsupported by CAHMS and we’re still under them now four years on.”
Claire Murdoch, National Mental Health Director, said: “This pandemic has hit our young people hard and while services have remained open throughout, we have seen an increase in the numbers of children and young people seeking help from the NHS for their mental health.
“This additional funding is in recognition of the rising demand and our continued commitment to provide the best care as early as possible and to do as much to prevent children and young people needing hospital treatment as we do to ensure that when they are in hospital they receive the right treatment before being supported back at home.”