Youth Commission on Mental Health's recommendations feature in the Scottish Government Mental Health Strategy
The Scottish Government’s Mental Health Strategy 2017-27 calls for a whole system approach to reviewing child and adolescent mental health services.
To fulfil their desire to create services that better meet the mental health needs of young people, the Scottish Government commissioned Young Scot and the SAMH to support young people to have a voice and to share their perspectives on improving mental health services.
Twenty-three 15-25-year olds formed a youth commission which lasted 16 months. The Young Scot Co-design approach was used to help the young people to develop insights, ideas, recommendations and solutions for policy and practice. In April 2019, the group set out their vision for how mental health services should be accessed and operated.
The recommendations included ensuring services take a person-centred approach; providing access to peer-to-peer support in secondary schools, and making mental health first aid training a standard requirement for all organisations working with young people. The group also called for an increase in funding to increase the capacity of services and ensure access to quality support.
We are thrilled that 99 of the 103 recommendations feature in the Scottish Government's second progress report on their Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027. As experts of their own experiences, young people should be involved at the core of any process to create policy or services to meet their mental health needs better.
We are excited to see the next phase of this important work!
“These recommendations are a huge step in realising how young people can act as system changers, influencing areas of their lives that affect them most.”