In January, the Prime Minister focused her first major health speech on mental health, calling it ‘a hidden injustice’. She talked of a ‘comprehensive package of reforms to improve mental health support at every stage of a person’s life – with an emphasis on early intervention for children and young people’. Some of the planned £1.4 billion spend on children includes a review of often hard-to-access CAMHS services for children and adolescents, while every secondary school is to be offered ‘mental first aid’ training. But it should be a priority that this programme extends to early years providers.
The idea that under-fives have mental health problems can be difficult for adults to comprehend, but when we consider that over half of mental health problems are identified by age 14, early childhood clearly plays a part.
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