Health spokesperson Paula Bradshaw MLA stated: “We welcome the ongoing work of the Mental Health Champion to demonstrate clearly not only what the issues are around mental well-being in children and young people, but also to provide recommendations on how to make progress.
“On the health side, this report must raise alarm bells among all political representatives both here in Northern Ireland and in the UK Government that we are going to fall well behind on implementation of the Mental Health Strategy. We need ministers in place, in Health and in other departments, to ensure that the Strategy moves forward with adequate focus and resourcing.”
Education spokesperson Connie Egan MLA added: “We can see that many of the Mental Health Champion’s recommendations are focused on education, including an Independent Review my party has long called for.
“The serious concern is that in the absence of an Executive and a Budget we are in fact doing the precise opposite of what we should be doing. The merit of programmes such as primary school counselling is well established in the report, but instead we are seeing such programmes being cut rather than enhanced.
“No one can read the statistics in the report and not recognise what a priority issue this is. It is long past time the DUP ended their boycott and those given the responsibility to govern should be able to get on with the job.”