Ipswich charity warns neglecting young people’s needs will have negative impact on NHS
The charity's also concerned about long-term consequences for education
A Suffolk-based charity has said that young people need active and early support with mental health and other wellbeing issues to prevent more severe long-term impacts.
The group ‘For Young People’, better known as 4YP, provides support to young people in Ipswich.
CEO Gavin Stone told us they’re dealing with a wave of young people with mental health problems like social anxiety.
He says, although these issues have been given more of a platform since Covid, they still don’t receive adequate support, with data from the Mental Health Foundation showing 70% of children and adolescents who experience mental health problems have not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age.
Gavin says that if the issues faced by young people are repeatedly ignored early-on this could lead to overwhelming pressure on NHS waiting lists and on schools struggling to fill the gap: “There is going to be an even longer greater pressure on NHS services, health services in particular.
"We’re going to see less young people in education, that will lead to less young people having access to opportunities to make a positive contribution to their societies in a meaningful way.”
The charity hopes that the incoming government put resources in the right place, investing in education and health to ensure the opportunities are there for young people to become positive contributors to the community.
“We’re dealing with a crisis” said Gavin, “it’s really important to help those most in need but we also need to upstream some of that support so that we’re working with people earlier in their journey.”
He’d like to see leadership listen to issues both locally and nationally, make themselves accountable in finding solutions, and trust that money used now will shorten future waiting lists and mean young people’s needs are less, or they have the coping mechanisms to meet those challenges.