Cuts to mental health services putting young people at risk, say experts

Funding cuts and austerity measures are damaging young people's access to mental health services, with potentially long-term consequences for their mental wellbeing, say researchers at the University of Cambridge. We need to acknowledge the mental health suffering in our young people that has only been increasingly apparent in recent years, and resolve to improve young people's access to effective mental health services. Sharon Neufeld In an article published today in the Journal of Public Mental Health , the team discuss the policy implications of their study published earlier in the year , which found that young people who have contact with mental health services in the community and in clinics are significantly less likely to suffer from clinical depression later in their adolescence than those with equivalent difficulties who do not receive treatment. Young people's mental health problems are associated with an increased risk of problems later on in adulthood, including poor mental health, lower income, unemployment, inability to maintain a stable cohabiting relationship, and greater contact with the criminal justice system. However, the team's previous study suggested that access for adolescents with mental health problems to intervention in schools and clinics reduces mental health problems up to three years later and would therefore yield personal, economic, and societal benefits over an individual's lifespan. In the study, Sharon Neufeld and colleagues from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge used data obtained between 2005-2010 - prior to funding cuts to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the community and in NHS clinics.