Dear Editor,

I write to tell your readers in Clackmannanshire that Scotland will face a growing child mental health crisis unless emotional well-being is taken as seriously as reading and writing in in the school curriculum.

To that end, we at the Mental Health Foundation Scotland have launched a new campaign called Make it Count - to warn that mental health can no longer be treated as “extra-curricular”.

Latest stats showed 8,000 children in Scotland with severe mental health problems were waiting to see a specialist at the end of June 2018 and 2,116 of them had been waiting for more than 18 weeks.

The Scottish Government announced more school-based counsellors and Mental Health First Aid training for teachers in its Programme for Government, but this alone won’t solve the problem.

Our research has found that 25 per cent of Scottish parents say that academic pressure and exam stress has caused their children to feel stressed.

Also, 31 per cent of Scottish parents say social anxiety has caused their children to feel stressed; while 58 per cent of Scottish young people say that a fear of making mistakes has led them to feel overwhelmed or unable to cope.

What's more is that almost two thirds (60 per cent) of Scottish young people say that pressures to succeed has led them to feel overwhelmed or unable to cope and more than half (53 per cent) say their body image has led them to feel overwhelmed or unable to cope.

This shows that academic pressure is exacerbating the mental health of many young people, including those in Clackmannanshire. The Scottish Government’s focus on raising attainment in reading and writing must not be at the expense of young people’s mental health.

It’s unacceptable that teachers are still not trained in mental health in Scotland. School staff desperately want the training to explore the “real life issues” that create distress – be it body image, relationship worries, exam stress or how to handle difficult conversations on social media.

Mental ill health is on the rise and schools must be equipped to respond and prevent distress by helping young people build resilience and cope with difficult situations. Unless we do that we’ll continue to see more children in crisis.

We welcome the commitment to train teachers in Mental Health First Aid – but we shouldn’t be waiting for children to become unwell before teachers are able to assist them. All school staff should be trained in much broader mental health and resilience to prevent mental ill health from developing in the first place.

Unless we take action now we will fail the next generation right at the start of their lives.

Toni Giugliano

Policy Manager at the Mental Health Foundation Scotland