Mental Health Taskforce Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Jeremy Lefroy
Main Page: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)Department Debates - View all Jeremy Lefroy's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Alistair Burt
The hon. Gentleman has a long-standing interest in these issues. He is absolutely right: in England, a pilot project with 27 schools is being run by the Department for Education to locate and identify a single point of contact in those schools on mental health issues for young people. Depending on the results, more projects can be rolled out. Early identification and support in school are absolutely essential, and that work is under way.
There are a number of different initiatives, sometimes inspired by people who have experienced personal tragedy in their own family. They realise that the tragedy that has befallen their young person might not have happened if their friends had been more aware of their circumstances, or if the school or college had been more aware. We look at all those different initiatives to see how best practice can be spread, but the hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I congratulate the Minister and the Government on their commitment on this. He has just spoken about best practice. Last month in Stafford we held a round table on mental health. One of the issues that came up was that there were a lot of good local initiatives, both in the public and the non-governmental organisation sector, but sometimes they did not know about each other. Will he point us to best practice in the sector?