Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to promote awareness of the warning signs of mental illness.

Our cross-government mental health outcomes strategy, No Health Without Mental Health, published 2011, takes a life course approach, recognising that the foundations for lifelong well-being are already being laid down before birth, and there is much we can do to protect and promote wellbeing and resilience through the early years, into adulthood and on into a healthy old age.

Our mental health action plan, Closing the Gap: Priorities for essential change in mental health, makes it clear that early identification and where necessary intervention can make a massive difference.

We have invested £54 million over the years 2011-12 to 2014-15 in the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme, this offers training to services in several different evidence based therapies which aim to help children and young people deal with negative thoughts and feelings and make positive changes. They can help children and young people who are feeling distressed by difficult events in their lives as well as those with a mental health problem. Among the evidence based therapies offered is Parental Therapy for conduct disorders in 3-10 year olds.

We launched the MindEd e-portal, www.minded.org.uk, in March this year to support staff working in schools to identify the mental health and well-being needs of children and young people.

The Department is working collaboratively with the Department for Education to raise awareness of mental health in schools and in teacher training. Schools are working to promote resilience in children and provide counselling in-house and through working with local mental health trusts in some places.

The Department for Education’s Mental Health and Behaviour in Schools, Departmental advice for school staff, published in June provided advice for schools including practical advice on supporting children with emotional and behavioural difficulties; strengthening pupil resilience; and tools to identify pupils likely to need extra support; where/how to access community support and how and when to refer to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

The recently established Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Well-Being Taskforce will be looking at ways to further improve early intervention and the resilience of children. The Taskforce membership includes headteachers. The Taskforce will report to Ministers in February 2015.

Our new five-year plan for mental health, Achieving Better Access to Mental Health Services by 2020, sets out our ambition and the immediate actions we will take this year and next to achieve better access and waiting times in mental health services.

We have identified £40 million additional spending to kick start change in the current year. This includes an investment of £33 million to support people in mental health crisis, and to boost early intervention services, that help some of the most vulnerable young people in the country to get well and stay well.