Morley MP meets mental health experts following death of schoolboy

Morley's MP has joined our fight for better mental health support in schools, following the death of an A* student who cracked under exam pressure.

We launched our Problem Shared campaign with the family of 15-year-old Daniel Long from Gildersome, who took his own life in February last year. We’re calling for every school to have a counsellor to ensure pupils always have someone to talk to.

Andrea Jenkyns has now met with local and national mental health experts to look at how support could be improved.

“It’s making sure that there’s a statutory mental health provision so that every school - whether you’re an academy or in a local authority cluster – has got to have a strong provision for their school,” says Andrea.

“What we found in the meeting is that it isn’t homogeneous the way that everybody is doing things, people are doing it their own way really. So I think a good thing that we’d like to see, which I know has been in the government’s green paper anyway, is about having 'best practice leads' in an area so that best practice can be shared.

“I think it’s also about fine-tuning the resources we’ve got, making them better, and ensuring that every child has got the right to have access through their school to these provisions.”

The meeting in Morley included representatives from Wakefield Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), Leeds City Council’s Children’s Services and national suicide prevention charity Papyrus, as well as a local teacher and Daniel’s mother Emma Oliver.

Speaking to us ahead of the meeting, Sarah Blackie from Papyrus called the mental health crisis in our schools is a ‘national scandal’.

“Over 200 school children die by suicide every year,” she said.

“That’s over 200 young people under the age of 19. The figures are way too high, that more than four young people die every week.

“Papyrus welcomes any initiative in schools which contributes to saving young lives. The loss of every young life is a tragedy, and we grieve with every family who are bereaved by young suicide.”

Andrea has now pledged to look at all the issues raised in the meeting and take them forward.

“I will look at the best ways to put these forward, whether it’s to local government or central government,” she said.

“We’ll write to local authorities regarding some of the things that came up, and I will also meet with ministers. I will put the thoughts forward and see if we can move forward and tighten up on some of these things.

“I think we all know somebody affected by mental health. I’m glad the government is investing in it and I’m pleased there’s some great resources out there, we just need to make sure that people don’t slip through the net and the most vulnerable get access to such services.

You can sign our Problem Shared petition here.