New report on children self-harming shows far more needs to be done to help prevent mental health issues at early age - MP

Responding to a report from The Children's Society which found that nearly a quarter of 14-year-old girls in the UK said they had self-harmed, South Lakes MP Tim Farron said:

"Today's deeply saddening report from The Children's Society unfortunately comes as no surprise.

"Over the past few years I've seen a significant rise in the number of parents writing to me or coming to one of my advice surgeries to talk about their child struggling with mental health issues and self-harming.

"While we have very good mental health professionals here in Cumbria, there is simply not enough support for those young people.

"I often have to fight to get treatment for children who are told that they must wait months to get that support."

Meanwhile, Tim is currently running a campaign to get the Government to properly support preventative mental health work with young people after it was revealed that they spend just 75p per head on preventing mental health problems for children each year in Cumbria.

Tim's petition can be signed here.