More cash for mental health plan

Emotional problems in adolescents have risen by 70%

Specialist mental health care services for young people in Wales are to receive an extra £500,000.

Health Minister Jane Hutt said the money had been allocated for emergency beds and specialist services.

It is three years since the assembly government launched its Strategy for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Children's Commissioner for Wales Peter Clarke had earlier expressed his frustration that the strategy was not receiving enough funding.

In his last annual report, Mr Clarke had made child and adolescent mental health services the number one priority.

He said it was a "service in crisis, with poor and patchy provision".

In response, Ms Hutt gave an extra £700,000 for the service in March this year, which Mr Clarke welcomed but said was not enough on its own.

He repeated his concerns at a conference in Llandrindod Wells this week.

I didn't think I was alive because no one was listening to me "Adam"

The additional £500,000, announced on the BBC's Politics Show on Sunday, will be used at "the sharp end of treatment", Ms Hutt said.

According to two recent reports, mental health problems among young people, including depression, anxiety, and stress as well as self-harming, are on the rise.

Research over 25 years by the Nuffield Foundation uncovered a 70% increase in emotional problems in adolescents.

The main causes are exam stress, bullying, worries about the future and family problems.

Children's charity Childline took 4,300 calls in 2003 related to self-harming, an almost 30% increase on the previous year.

Recently, Cardiff-based group the Amber Project, which supports young people who self-harm, had its assembly government funding withdrawn.

One of the group's members, Adam (not his real name), began self-harming at the age of 12.

Support

He told The Politics Show: "There were a lot of problems in school with bullying and I was getting no help.

"I didn't think I was alive because no one was listening to me. So I wanted to see if I was still alive so I decided to cut myself."

He thinks there needs to be more support for young people with problems.

"More training for people in schools, in hospital, A lot more training around, so people understand," he said.

Announcing the strategy, Ms Hutt said: ""We're very concerned about the mental health of our young people and that's why we launched Everybody's Business, our 10-year plan for children's and adolescents' mental health services in 2001.

"We will be building on this strategy when we launch our children's National Service Framework (NSF) for consultation next month.

"A key element of the NSF is how to help prevent children suffering mental health problems and how to support them if they do.

"It must focus on providing the right help and support when they need it and highlights the need for children to have access to high-quality health, education and social services."