Lynne Neagle is a Welsh politician who by her own account is “like a terrier” when it comes to following things through. In her sights is the rising tide of emotional and mental distress among children and young people.
Neagle, who has served on the National Assembly for Wales as the Labour member for Torfaen since devolution in 1999, says it’s high time for a “step-change” of approach in Wales. As chair of the cross-party children, young people and education committee, she wants the Welsh government to make the emotional and mental wellbeing and resilience of children and young people a national priority. And she is adamant that “this has got to be sorted out now”.
Neagle says: “It’s going to be 20 years that I’ve been here, and the number of times we have had discussions in this place about our children and young people’s mental health services being below par – it’s like Groundhog Day writ large.”
In Wales, one in 10 young people will experience a mental health problem. Figures obtained by the NSPCC at the end of 2016 showed that nearly 1,200 children in Wales were admitted to hospital after harming themselves, a 41% rise over three years. “Mental health issues are a big issue for children across in the UK, says Neagle. “In Wales, they are the biggest reason for children and young people to contact the children’s commissioner.”
Last month’s budget pledged an extra £2bn for mental health in England, while Wales will spend £625m on mental health services from next year.
But Neagle says it’s not just a case of increasing funding, but doing more to prevent mental illness. “If young people are to be placed at the heart of our overall strategy for mental health, we need to ensure that our focus shifts from the reactive to the preventive.”
She wants greater emphasis on resilience-building, and early intervention – to embed good mental health and coping strategies that will stay with youngsters for the rest of their lives.
Neagle also says there needs to be a shift to provide more services for the “missing middle” – youngsters experiencing emotional distress or anxiety but who fall short of meeting the criteria of a diagnosable disorder.
“Where is the support for those young people who may not have a diagnosed mental illness but who obviously have a need – who they are distressed, who are not functioning at school, who have got family problems? I think that support is missing,” she says.
Neagle knows what she is talking about: her committee spent months taking evidence on how best to improve children and young people’s mental health. Its report, Mind Over Matter, published in April, called on the Welsh government to make youngsters’ mental health and wellbeing a “stated national priority” and made a further 27 recommendations to transform mental health support, backed by some tight deadlines. “If we get this right for our children and young people, so many other things will fall into place,” says Neagle.
“They will learn better, they will attain more, they will get better jobs but they will also be more resilient adults. I think there is a big link between getting this right and stemming the increase in mental health problems and in the number of suicides.”
Neagle gives credit to her colleagues in the Welsh government for recognising the importance of child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs). As well as an additional £7.65m a year since 2015, from April 2018 it has awarded an extra £1.1m a year to support “further improvements” to Camhs. And at the end of last year it also put £1.4m in a pilot for Camhs practitioners to operate in schools, which will run until the summer of 2020.
But even so she says that too often schools are left plugging the gap. The children’s committee wants “adequate, ringfenced” resources to turn schools into community hubs of cross-sector and cross-professional support for emotional resilience and mental wellbeing as part of a “system-wide reform”. “Schools are absolutely fundamental in terms of teaching young people how to be resilient, how to be open about their mental health, how to seek help [and] giving support to young people at an early stage,” says Neagle.
In September, ministers established a joint ministerial group to accelerate work on a “whole school” approach to children’s mental health, in response to the committee’s report.
For now, Neagle is clear that her committee will hold the Welsh government to account if progress is not made. “We do not intend to take our foot off the pedal on this.”
Curriculum vitae
Age: 50.
Family: Married, two sons
Lives: Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan.
Education: Cyfartha High School, Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales; Reading University, French and Italian degree.
Career: 2016-present: chair, children, young people & education committee, National Assembly for Wales ; 1999-present: assembly member, National Assembly for Wales ; 1997-1999: carers development officer, Voluntary Action Cardiff; 1994-1997: researcher for Glenys Kinnock MEP; 1993-1994: information project officer, Mid Glamorgan Association of Voluntary Organisations; 1991-1993: volunteer housing rights worker, Shelter Cymru; 1988-1989: sabbatical post as student union vice-president, education and welfare, Reading University.
Public life: Vice president, Torfaen Museum Trust; patron, Torfaen Opportunity Group; Dementia champion Torfaen; chair, National Assembly for Wales cross-party group on dementia.
Interests: Reading, going to the cinema, swimming.
