The Commission on Young Lives has today published its fourth thematic report, 'Heads Up: Rethinking mental health services for vulnerable young people'. The report looks at the growing crisis of mental health problems among children and young people in England and puts forward ambitious and innovative proposals to redesign young people's mental health services, particularly for those young people at risk of harm.
The report, co-authored with the leading thinktank Centre for Mental Health, and the Children and Young People's Mental Health Coalition, reveals a profound crisis in children and young people's mental health services in England and a system of support that is buckling under pressure, frequently over-medicalised and bureaucratic, unresponsive, outdated, and siloed. Speaking with professionals who work with children, and to children and families themselves, the Commission has heard about young people who have barely returned to school since Covid, the increase in the regularity and extreme nature of many young people's mental health problems, and how self-harm and suicide attempts are a much more regular feature of school and college life.
