The mental health crisis in our communities.

Braking a bone means a visit to the hospital, albeit a long wait but you leave with a cast and the hope that after several weeks the bone heals. Suffering mental health is the mind’s broken bone, only it doesn’t take weeks to heal, and you cannot visit a hospital to be treated.

Our mental health facilities are broken, the queues to access correct help are endlessly long and sufferers wait in silence for very long periods of time to access counsellors or some form of support.

Thousands of young people suffering with their mental help are not getting the right support or just being given tablets without any other form of support such as counselling that they so urgently need.

The cost of living crisis has added huge pressures on families, children are watching parents and carers suffer to to get by everyday. Bullying has been on the increase across schools, having a huge impact on young people.

The level of PTSD across our communities has increased- 1 in 13 children across the UK will suffer with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at some point in their childhood. It is estimated that there will be a rise of 230,000 new referrals between 2020/21 and 2022/23 in England.

How many of these children are accessing the right support and just how many are given tablets in the hope that it will all soon pass?

Trauma, unless addressed does not pass. It is not something you can put behind you and say-‘don’t take any notice, it will go.’ It doesn’t, it needs to be acknowledged and once it starts to be addressed and identified, the trauma will begin to ease with the right support.

Mental health sufferers are being let down by the system. Police officers are taking one call every four minutes in London to a mental health sufferer, figures that are truly shocking. Yet, once again no one is addressing this vital issue.

Communities are at breaking point for so many reasons and people’s mental health is taking the brunt.

As today sees the start of another new Prime Minister, we hope that he addresses this issue urgently.