Children need more support

The days of keeping mental health problems private have gone. While our emotional wellbeing was once something hidden behind a stiff upper lip, awareness campaigns and highprofile revelations have abolished the social taboo of talking about your feelings.

Each story brings shock and intrigue, but it also inspires others.

This week we brought you the news a primary school was working with mental health charity Mind, supporting not only teachers, but pupils and parents too, after there was evidence children had self-harmed.

Hearing of young children harming themselves is shocking, but it is also a reality that parents have had to previously face alone.

The pioneering decision by Harrietsham Primary School to bring in mental health experts from Mind made them the first primary in the county to do so.

But the innovation didn’t come cheap. The school received more than £8,000 in lottery funding to support pupils, train teachers to spot mental health emergencies and help spread awareness to parents and governors.

Despite the NHS warning of a crisis, funding from government isn’t coming quick enough.

When a primary school has to rely on lottery funding to get support from a national charity, it shows a community coming together for the common good.

But what it also shows is the desperate state our most vulnerable face; waiting times, a lack of funding and most importantly, a lack of support.

Maidstone’s Mind branch is having to support schools as far as Dagenham, spending 30% of its time working with students, because other branches don’t have the facilities.

If our schools are to receive the help they need to properly equip future generations, reliance has to switch from charities to our government.