In September 2018, NICCY published a Rights Based Review of Mental Health Services and Support for Children and Young People – ‘Still Waiting’. A big focus of this report was to give young people who have faced mental health problems a chance to share their experiences of mental health support and services. We then used this information to help Government understand what changes need to be made to make services better.
The ‘Still Waiting’ report included recommendations across 8 different areas where improvement to children and young people’s services were needed. A working group, known as an Interdepartmental Group (IDG), was set up by Government to be responsible for making these changes. Each year, this group publishes a report to show what it is doing to improve services and support. NICCY monitors this report to show how they are progressing the recommendations in the ‘Still Waiting’ Report. You can find the most recent report below:
The NICCY Youth Panel, in partnership with the Northern Ireland Youth Forum and Belfast City Council Youth Forum has worked to produce a mental health advocacy toolkit for young people, titled “Heads Up!”.
It’s a mental health toolkit – made by young people, for young people – and will help young people run their own mental health projects where their live.
Northern Ireland’s first Mental Health Strategy and what it means for Children and Young People
The Department of Health has produced a Mental Health Strategy for Northern Ireland, this has never been done before, it is a plan to help everyone who lives here to have good mental health and to put supports in place so that if anyone becomes unwell they can get the help they need quickly. The Strategy includes specific things they plan to do to better support children. A copy of the children and young person version of the Strategy can be found here.
You can also contact the following organisations:
If you would like to discuss any of the work NICCY is involved in, get in touch by emailing participation@niccy.org