Children's Mental Health Week - an update from Cllr Barnham

Children and young people today face a lot of pressure that can harm their mental health. Lewisham is a young borough – a quarter of Lewisham’s population is under 20. That’s why, since the Mayor asked me to take responsibility for our children’s services, expanding and improving emotional wellbeing and mental health provision has been high on our agenda.

We know that there’s lots more to do, but with this being Children’s Mental Health Week, I’ve been reflecting on what we’ve achieved so far:

More funding

I’m proud to say that we’ve worked with the NHS to raise CAMHS funding by 50% in three years, and cut waiting times.

Mental Health teams in schools

We’ve already introduced Mental Health Support Teams to 19 schools, and we’re now rolling out a further wave to an additional 20 schools. These teams are a school-based early intervention and prevention service, delivered by South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. We’ve been really pleased with the positive feedback from schools and wider stakeholders including children and their families.

Earlier this week, I visited Dalmain Primary School’s Mental Health Hub and took part in a fun mental health workshop. I’ve written before about the wonderful work that schools in our borough have done to adapt to the pandemic, demonstrating how important they are to the fabric of our community.

Improving Early Help and Prevention

When children are in crisis, they need expert help as fast as possible. But we don’t want children to have to wait until things are so bad they have to see a specialist. We want them to have help early, before problems get worse. We’re currently reviewing our services to ensure that there are coherent and easily accessible routes to help and guidance for all young people, as early as possible, with clear routes to more intensive help when that’s needed. We will soon produce a new local directory of support that will help raise awareness of the local service offer.

Improving “edge of care” services

We’ve been strengthening the Lewisham’s ‘edge of care’ services. These are designed to support families in difficulty so that children do not have to be taken into care unless absolutely necessary. This includes the introduction of therapeutic clinicians in the children’s social care workforce, to provide consultation to social work practitioners so that practice is therapeutically informed, and delivers responsive and flexible services direct to families.

We don’t underestimate the work that still needs to be done. But good progress is being made, and I am determined to continue working with our NHS partners with a strong focus on driving improvement.