Introduction
Children and Young People’s mental health is a priority area for NICCY. It is one of the top things young people tell us they want to talk about, and is also an area where they feel more needs to be done to support young people. NICCY gets feedback from its Youth Panel on all the areas NICCY advises government on and mental health and emotional wellbeing is one of them.
Still Waiting
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:
- Click here to view the Children and Young Person’s version of our 2022 monitoring report
‘Heads Up!’ Mental Health Toolkit
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.
Other things of interest
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.
Link to supporting Organisations
- If you are a young person and need support with your mental health talk to your parents/guardians, GP, teacher or another trusted adult.
You can also contact the following organisations:
- Childline 0800 1111 childline.org.uk – Childline provides a 24-hour free telephone advice line and online 1-2-1 chat advice for any child or young person who has a concern.
- Samaritans 116 123 samaritans.org – Samaritans offers a confidential hotline which is free to use by anyone who needs help.
- Contact NI 0808 808 8000 contactni.com– Contact NI normally runs school based, community based and specialist counselling services free of charge. They also run the lifeline helpline.
Find out More
If you would like to discuss any of the work NICCY is involved in, get in touch by emailing participation@niccy.org