Councils should be able to retain a percentage of the pupil premium allowance to help provide school-based support services, a think tank has argued today.
In a new report, Localis argues that children and young people are failing to receive ‘sustained support’ for their mental health, and are instead being bounced between different tiers of services.
It argues that something has ‘badly wrong’ in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), with many falling off the radar until they reach crisis point.
The think tank found up to 29% of young people referred to CAMHS are are inappropriately referred, while only 3% of Local Transformation Plans commission school-based services.
The report also discovered that 62 local authorities are below the national completion rate of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire designed to assess a young person’s risk of poor mental health.
Localis is calling for several reforms to the mental health system including providing local authorities with the statutory duty to provide school-based support services for all young people between 11 and 18 who attend state maintained schools.
