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Council to
"champion” good mental health of children in Britain
November
27, 2008
by Angela Hussain
.....
A
new advisory council will "champion” the good mental
health of children in Britain, the government has announced.
It
follows the publication last week of an independent review of child
and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).
The review reported that although improvements had been made in
CAMHS provision since 2004 there were "unacceptable" variations
between areas of Britain.
And problems are not being spotted
early enough and services are taking too long to respond, said the
review's report.
The
new National Advisory Council, launched
by The children's secretary Ed Balls and health secretary Alan Johnson,
is charged with “holding the government to account”
on delivery of the review's recommendations. These included that
the
entire children's workforce have mental health training within two
years.
The
CAMHS review examined progress made since the government's children’s
national service framework of 2004.
The framework is a ten-year policy document detailing what services
children and young people should expect. Standard 9 of the framework
addressed the mental health of children and young people.
But,
despite
government assurances, Simon Lawton of the Mental Health Foundation
charity is sceptical that the advisory council would be effective.
"We
need to know what powers it will have over local areas that are
slow to commission comprehensive CAMHS," he said.
Read for
yourself: Children
and young people in mind:
the final report of the National CAMHS Review
See also:
Young people
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