Ten initiatives to help young people: 6. A youth mental help body

A significant number of young people face mental health problems.  It might be bullying at school or at work, or sometimes difficulties encountered by discrimination.  Often it is depression, depression they find it difficult to cope with on their own.  Many face problems with their physical appearance, finding it difficult or impossible to conform to idealized notions of what they think they ought to look like.  This leaves them feeling inadequate and unhappy, which in turn can lead to mental problems. The NHS does not do well with the mental problems faced by young people.  Sometimes and in some places it does well, but on average it fails to meet an adequate standard of care in this area.  Too many young people feel they are facing their problems alone and cannot cope.  Some attempt suicide, some tragically succeed.  

It is perhaps time to recognize that young people have special mental health needs, and that these are different in some ways than those faced by the general adult population.  Young people have little experience of life, are only just coming to terms with who they are, and can feel isolated, helpless and confused.  This suggests the need for an independent body to which they can turn for specialist help.  Some youngsters find the NHS remote and intimidating, unable to offer the intimate and personal help that is often needed.  This is perhaps because the NHS tries to use its limited resources to best effect, trying to save lives where it can.  Some critics say it is under-resourced on mental health in general, never mind young people's mental health.  What the NHS spends on one thing cannot also be spent on another.

To prevent youth mental health losing out to more strident claims on resources, a separate body is needed, independent of the NHS, but with its services available free at the point of need.  Financed partly by the taxpayer, and party from the sponsorship of businesses and private benefactors, the body would be the natural one to turn to when young people needed help.  Advertising would help make its services widely known just as happens with the Samaritans.  With a name such as "Support," it could readily establish a brand identity such that young people would know whom to turn to when they found their problems more than they could face alone. It could provide expertly trained staff with experience of youth problems, people who would listen sympathetically and at a personal level.  It would not solve all the mental health problems faced by young people, but it could contribute to a significant improvement in the lives of many of them.