We have a mental health crisis...get kids in school

YOUNG people are not OK. Parents are telling me their children don’t want to wake up in the morning because they say life under these restrictions is so bad. Long-lasting damage to the mental health of our young people is occurring.

Suicide is already the leading cause of death in young people in England and we need to prioritise them now to prevent further tragedy.

Policy makers must do what is right by children and get them back to normal as soon as possible, or Generation Lockdown will suffer unnecessarily for years to come. It is incontrovertible that young people are suffering overwhelming harm to their mental health in this crisis.

Half of young people aged 16 to 25 report deteriorating mental health, with one in four feeling “unable to cope”.

The number likely to have clinically significant mental health problems has increased from one in nine in 2017 to one in six in 2020 after the first English lockdown – that’s five children in a class of 30 likely to need clinical support.young people are lonely – lonelier than their parents. Loneliness is as damaging to health as smoking and obesity, and is associated with suicidal thinking and impacts on mental health up to nine years later.

Children are at an extremely low risk from Covid with not a single death of a previously healthy child.to Matt Hancock, I say there are issues other than Covid in the world and public health must be more balanced.

We now have a mental health crisis on our hands which must be addressed urgently. Mental health awareness programmes and support for those struggling must be available in schools as standard.to Gavinwilliamson I say get children back to school urgently and support their social and emotional wellbeing.act now or be the Education Secretary who failed a generation.