OUR campaign is called Healthy Young Minds and we believe this name fits perfectly with what we hope to achieve – a positive start for all children and better access to specialist services for those who require it.

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Last week, the Evening Mail ran special reports over three days, exploring the plight of many families in Furness who have been unable to get the support they so desperately need.

We spoke to three families who told us about their harrowing experiences, with one mother desperate to get her .

Families feel as if they have been abandoned, and the advice of a GP to one desperate mother was: “get your son out of Cumbria”.

The causes for the crisis in child mental health provision in Cumbria are vast.

Many believe mental health is treated like a “Cinderella service”, with a disproportionate amount of spending allocated to the issue when compared against other physical disabilities.

More people are being referred to the Children and Adolescents Mental Health Service than ever before but funding levels are not meeting demand.

Herein lies our first campaign goal.

We are asking our three MPs: John Woodcock, Tim Farron and Jamie Reed to lobby parliament about this.

The root cause of a lot of problems in Barrow is due to a staff shortage, with practitioners fighting a backlog of appointments.

We also want to raise awareness of mental health issues among children, share expert advice with parents, carers and teachers and promote a culture of early intervention.

If the signs of self-harm, eating disorders and distress can be spotted earlier and addressed then the problems can be stopped from spiralling out of control.

Experts within the CAMHS service believe this could reduce the number of referrals they receive by 30 per cent – helping to ease the pressure for appointments while resources are so scant.

This is our second aim – to arm families with advice about how they can help themselves and highlight the different streams of help available.

We will also be sharing the experiences of parents to show this is not an isolated issue – that there are families in the area who are fighting to get the best for their children.

This is a third and final aim – to help crush any remaining stigma attached to mental health issues among children and teenagers in our area and ensure anyone affected knows they can reach out for help.

‘This silence must end, it costs lives’

POLITICIANS are backing the Evening Mail’s Healthy Young Minds campaign as it launches today.

The task of ensuring adequate preventative and specialist services are available for children and young people as they need them was recognised by MPs in south Cumbria.

They say support for young people experiencing mental health problems is one of the most important things to tackle in the area.


Tim Farron

Senior UK politician and newly elected leader of the Liberal Democrats party Tim Farron has stepped forward to offer his backing to the Healthy Young Minds campaign.

Having long held concerns over mental health services for children and teenagers in Cumbria, father of four Mr Farron commissioned an independent study of provision across the area, called Growing Up in South Lakeland, last year. He told the Evening Mail: “Mental health affects every aspect of our lives.

“Mental health services are absolutely vital but tragically find themselves swept under the carpet all too often.

“This silence must end. It costs lives, divides our society and harms our young people.

“We must have the courage to open our eyes to the truth about mental health and act.”

John Woodcock, parliamentary representative for Barrow and Furness, has also pledged his full support to the campaign, stating the mental health of young people had become the prime concern of headteachers across Furness. He set out the importance of protecting the region’s children with specialist help available on demand – as well as the need for change in the way society views mental health problems.

Range of improvements are being implemented – trust

BOSSES at the helm of acute mental health services for children and teenagers in Cumbria claim a raft of improvements are already being implemented county wide.

Leaders within the Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust – the body commissioned to provide mental health services for those with moderate to acute problems – are working with a number of other agencies including Cumbria County Council to review provision across the area.

It is hoped the whole system approach will help boost early intervention programmes to reduce reliance on the specialist Children and Adolescents Mental Health Services – run from the Fairfield Centre, in Fairfield Lane, Barrow.

The overstretched CAMHS clinic has been heavily criticised over the past five years as appointments have failed to keep pace with escalating demand.

The Evening Mail revealed last week that referrals to tier three CAMHS services have doubled since 2010 while recruitment of specialist staff has remained a challenge.

Funding for the service was also shown to have plummeted by £500,000 last year after a government grant for children’s mental health services was closed.

A spokesman for CPFT said an out of hours system was now in operation and that urgent cases were seen within 48 hours.

But she added the whole system approach offered the best hope of a long term solution to the problems within mental health services in the area.

“The emotional wellbeing of children and young people is everyone’s responsibility and partners in the health, social care, education and the third sector are working together towards a vision that all children and young people can access the support they need to achieve emotional wellbeing and mental health.

“This is known as the whole system approach.

“The whole system approach has made significant progress over the last 12 months including the delivery of the HeadStart project through commissioned projects in schools and communities in Carlisle and Barrow, and beginning to operate a child and young people’s talking therapy service, and progressing recruitment to more specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service roles.”

Leaders within CCC acknowledge there are gaps in provision and are now commissioning a Primary Mental Health Early Intervention Service with the Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group.

A new body has also been formed to address a critical shortfall of mental health provision for children in Cumbria and champion the benefits of early help.

Called the Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Partnership, it’s progress is being monitored by the Cumbria Local Safeguarding Children Board.