Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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197. To ask the Minister for Health if the significant impact that the pandemic and public health restrictions have had on young person's mental health will be acknowledged; if requests by secondary school students for the provision of a counsellor to schools to help address the mental health and emotional issues during and post public health emergency will be viewed favourably; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25873/21]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Government, and all relevant State organisations including those in the health sector, have acknowledged the impacts posed by Covid and have made unprecedented and comprehensive efforts to mitigate them. A key focus for Government has been addressing the impacts on the mental health of all our population, including young people.

The Government’s strong commitment to mental health was again underlined in Budget 2021 which saw an increase of €50 million, thus bringing total HSE funding for mental health this year to over €1.1 billion. This does not take account of additional funding allocated to mental health in other areas of the health system or through other Departments such as Justice, Education and Social Protection.

The new funding allocated this year will allow for implementation of many of the short-term recommendations of the widely agreed policy Sharing the Vision. It will, for example, fund over 150 new staff in community mental health services (including 29 posts for CAMHS), bereavement counselling, employment supports and crisis resolution teams. Work is progressing in each of these areas.

While there is no doubt that Covid-19 has posed significant challenges, including isolation, bereavement, anxiety and loss of income and work for many, we do not yet fully understand the impact of Covid-19 on mental health and subsequent demand on services. I am acutely aware of how difficult the pandemic has been for young people. Developing enhanced supports for them as requirements evolve remains a priority. Extensive work has been undertaken to date and this will continue. The Department of Health and the Department of Education has, for example, with assistance from the HSE, produced a mental health support leaflet for young people which has been circulated to around 4,000 schools. This was also made available online for download by those working with young people. It signposted a wide range of mental health services, whether those provided direct by the HSE or by agencies on its behalf, for young people and their parents. Details of these, and more, are also available on www.yourmentalhealth.ie.

I recently had a very positive meeting with Minister Foley and NEPS where we reviewed the range of mental health and psycho-social supports in place for young people and how these might be enhanced. This included guidance counsellors and NEPS in schools, and the well established links for schools to access HSE Primary Care psychology, the specialist CAMHS service, or the many organisations that provide mental health supports for the Executive.

Since the pandemic started, mental health services have responded rapidly, continuing to deliver supports for young people in the safest possible way throughout the country. The HSE has a range of proactive responses for any rise in mental health service needs, including online and other telehealth psychosocial supports. The HSE Psychosocial Framework, published in January 2021, builds on a range of supports introduced last year in response to Covid. The Framework provides a cohesive, coordinated, consistent and collaborative whole-of-population approach to the provision of mental health services and supports across five key levels, ranging from mental health promotion to specialist supports.

Digital mental health initiatives were rapidly enhanced to enable services to meet not only current demand, but new and emerging need. It has enabled us to continue providing much needed supports, including digital responses where traditional face-to-face service delivery was not possible.

These include one-to-one counselling and group and peer supports delivered, for example, through MyMind, Turn2Me and Silvercloud. MyMind provides free online counselling, in 15 languages, to people in communities nationwide and is delivering approximately 4,000 counselling and psychotherapy sessions each month.

Jigsaw, which provides prevention and early intervention services to young people, has 13 sites nationally and offers online supports to young people in all communities across the country. It will open a new service in Tipperary next month, which will include a blended approach of face to face supports and online services.

Earlier this year, the Taoiseach announced additional funding for mental health for proposed cross-governmental and inter-agency initiatives to meet evolving demands for mental health arising from Covid, including those relating to young people. This will cover, for example, promoting positive mental health, increasing awareness of the wide range of supports available, and improving signposting to these service and supports. The Department of Health is at present progressing the details of this new initiative, including consultation with other relevant stakeholders in the health and education sectors.

I would like to assure the Deputy that I, along with the Government as a whole, remain fully committed to enhancing the provision of mental health services and counselling supports for young people nationally, and that I will keep this matter under close review.