Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 September 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs

Youth Mental Health: Discussion

Mr. Jim Ryan:

It is a six-week cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT, programme that our psychological primary care side is looking at. It is an add-on to our current face-to-face service. If a young person or an adult is on a waiting list, it may be possible in advance of his or her appointment to offer e-mental health initiatives, in other words, e-well or e-CBT. Jigsaw is working on this in its services. We are doing that in our own services and through Turn2me and BeLonG To. We are piloting this with several external organisations to monitor the uptake. This will take some time because not everyone is comfortable doing this online. However our experience is that young people access their information online much more than my generation did. We have to address that. Social media is seen as one of the difficulties we face but it may also be a solution to some of the issues we face. As members will know, the Minister of State, Deputy Daly, has been leading that agenda. I will send the Deputy specific information, but that is the general gist.

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