MP seeks to gather young people’s support for mental health campaign on World Mental Health Day
Local MP Tim Farron will use World Mental Health Day (10th October) to gather support for his campaign to improve preventative mental health care for young people.
Tim has sent copies of his petition, which calls for the Government to properly fund preventative mental health care for young people in Cumbria, to every secondary school and college in the constituency.
Due to cuts to the public health budget from central Government, Cumbria currently only spends £75,000 a year on tier 1 mental health preventative care. This works out at just 75p per child.
Back in 2015, the coalition Government agreed to allocate Cumbria with £25m a year for public health.
But the Conservative Government reneged on that promise, and now Cumbria only receives £18m per year - £7m less than originally promised.
Tim's petition calls on the Government to invest the extra £7m that was promise in order to fund a mental health professional for every local school and college.
Tim said: "Every day people come to me with specific issues, complaints and problems. But to be honest none of those problems keep me awake at night like the awareness of the enormous personal struggles that some young people and their families endure through mental health conditions. I know I'm not alone in feeling like this.
"I also know how much young people themselves are determined to fight for better mental health provision.
"World Mental Health Day gives us an opportunity to highlight action that could be taken to improve the mental health of our young people and to help improve the services that support them.
"A mental health professional for every school and college would not only help our children's mental health but would ease the burden on our massively oversubscribed local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and relieve the pressure on our brilliant but overworked teachers."