Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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445. To ask the Minister for Health the measures he is taking to introduce greater awareness and prevention of mental health problems for children and young persons; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3761/17]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Mental Health and Older People I am committed to ensuring that there is greater awareness and prevention of mental health problems for children and young people.

'A Vision for Change' advocated a holistic view of mental illness and an integrated multi-disciplinary approach to addressing the various factors that contribute to mental health problems, moving from traditional psychiatric based care to a patient-centred, flexible and community based service that promotes recovery and prevention. Significant progress has been made in this area through the expansion of community mental health teams from 49 in 2008 to 67 currently. In addition, specialist secondary care mental health counselling and psychotherapy is provided within HSE Community Mental Health Teams, and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Teams. Counselling is also provided by a range of voluntary organisations across the health service, including those supported by the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention.

Budget 2017 provided additional funding for mental health, to promote positive mental health and the development of Early Intervention and counselling responses. It made allowance for an additional €35 million for services to be initiated in 2017. Key priorities to be addressed in the HSE 2017 Service Plan include youth mental health, further improvement to child & adolescent (CAMHS) and adult services, older people's services and further enhanced out of hours response for those in need of urgent services. Recognising the time lag in new staff taking up posts and the completion of preparations for the introduction of these services, it is estimated that the revenue spend in 2017 associated with this increased allocation will be some €15 million. There will also be a further additional spend of €9.5 million in mental health associated with increased pay rates. This additional €24.7 million for 2017 will see the HSE Mental Health Budget increase to €851 million. With other minor adjustments, the National Service Plan Budget for Mental Health for 2017 totals €853.1m.

HSE funding for Jigsaw counselling services for young people was expanded in 2016 to establish five new centres in three cities. The Executive continues to commit to the development of publicity campaigns such as and #littlethings. In 2013, the Department of Education and Skills, the HSE, and the Department of Health jointly developed Well-Being in Post Primary Schools Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention. This was followed in 2015 by the publication of Guidelines setting out a framework for mental health promotion in primary schools. The HSE will continue to assist in the development of this initiative during 2017.

The Programme for Partnership Government committed that "A National Taskforce on Youth Mental Health will be established to consider how best to introduce and teach resilience, coping mechanisms, greater awareness to children and young people, and how to access support services voluntarily at a young age." The Taskforce was established within the first 100 days of Government and is being chaired by me.

The aim of the Taskforce is to provide national leadership on youth mental health and wellbeing in order to enhance how the public, private and voluntary and community sectors work together to improve:

- Emotional literacy in the population;

- Awareness of services and supports;

- Accessibility to services and supports at different times and in different areas;

- Alignment of services and supports across different providers (public organisations, private organisations, community organisations, voluntary organisations, etc.).

The Taskforce is a small, diverse group of 18 leading national figures that represent a number of different sectors.It is an action-focused group, has met monthly since September 2016 and will work for 12-18 months. It has visited frontline services, and met with service users, parents and staff. As part of my commitment to ensuring that the voices of children and young people are at the core of the work of the Taskforce, a series of consultations with young people has commenced.