{"id":304456,"date":"2025-12-08T05:22:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T05:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304456\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T05:22:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T05:22:16","slug":"scots-social-worker-calls-for-child-mental-health-to-be-declared-national-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304456\/","title":{"rendered":"Scots social worker calls for child mental health to be declared national emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"

It comes as Public Health Scotland figures revealed 128 children have waited more than a year for \u00adtreatment, up from 115 last year.\"GroupMany children are now facing mental health struggles (Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

A social worker has called for the jump in the number of children with mental health<\/a> problems to be declared a national emergency.<\/p>\n

It comes as Public Health Scotland figures revealed 128 children have waited more than a year for \u00adtreatment, up from 115 last year.<\/p>\n

Joe Holmes<\/p>\n

However Jo Holmes, a qualified social worker with over 20 years experience, says the rise in children facing mental health<\/a> issues over the last decade is unprecedented and has called for immediate action.<\/p>\n

He, said: \u201cMental health issues facing young people today, it\u2019s an epidemic, it\u2019s more than a crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepression, anxiety and self esteem can all lead to behaviour complications, especially among girls.<\/p>\n

\u201cMental health issues are affecting children across the board with more and more children presenting with difficulties.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also classless. When I started working, you could predict from the children coming into care, the majority from poverty, neglect. Now it\u2019s not only those in care, it\u2019s not only the lower classes, it\u2019s everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe support is there for those children who we would maybe say are high tariff, so with eating disorders, suicide attempts and extreme self harm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is, for the lower level, that support just isn\u2019t there. And if that tier goes unsupported, untreated and unheard, they become that top tier very quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simplistic to say we need more money, of course we need more money. But we need people to understand what is really going on for our young people. There needs to be more resources, training, and a whole culture shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be the ringing of the bells, a national emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young Foundations is part of the Scottish Children\u2019s Services \u00adCoalition, an alliance of specialist care and education providers.<\/p>\n

The SCSC said: \u201cWe would urge the Scottish Government to ensure the adequate resourcing of mental health services for our children<\/a> and young people so that they can get the care and support they need, without lengthy waits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mental Wellbeing Minister Tom Arthur said: \u201cOver the last year, children and young people\u2019s mental health services have exceeded the national standard, with 91.5 per cent of children and young people starting treatment within 18 weeks of referral to CAMHS<\/a> in the latest quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI remain clear long waits are unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It comes as Public Health Scotland figures revealed 128 children have waited more than a year for \u00adtreatment,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[102,1906,6623,4219,75120,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-304456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-scottish-government","12":"tag-sunday-mail-news","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}