Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government is taking to (a) publicise adolescent mental health issues on the internet and (b) support the prevention of adolescent mental health issues arising from social media.

The Government works with the online sector and other stakeholders to address the impact of potentially harmful content online given that online harms can have a negative effect on individual's mental health.

The Department has invested:

- £3 million in MindEd, an online training platform for professionals working with children and young people to recognise when a child needs mental health support; and

- £12 million between 2016-20 in Time to Change to challenge mental health stigma, which has reached 750,000 children and young people through social marketing campaigns and improved attitudes of over 4.1 million people in England.

Public Health England has also launched Rise Above, a website to build emotional resilience in young people to help deal with the pressures of growing up, including mental health.

The Government expect websites, including social media companies, to respond quickly to reports of harmful content/abusive behaviour on their networks.

The joint Department of Health and Department of Education Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health will consider action to minimise the risks social media poses, whilst maximising its benefits. Work has started on the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport led cross-Government internet safety strategy which will give us the opportunity to consider issues of online safety for children and young people. We are considering how this will be taken forward under the Digital Charter.