Mind over Matter Report - sign the letter to support the recommendations

We Support the Mind over matter Report's Recommendations for better Children and Young People’s Wellbeing and Mental Health

​The National Assembly for Wales Children, Young People and Education Committee released the results of their inquiry called Mind over matter in April 2018. The report aims to build on the work of the previous committee and explore in more detail what support is available for children and young people’s emotional well-being in Wales.
​We have written the below letter to Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services, Vaughan Gething AM outlining our support for this reports recommendations. If you would like to sign this letter please click the button below.

SIGN THE LETTER

Dear Vaughan Gething AM

​RE: We Support the Mind over matter Report's Recommendations for better Children and Young People’s Wellbeing and Mental Health

The Mind over Matter inquiry makes one fundamentally key recommendation; that the Welsh Government makes the emotional mental well-being and resilience of our children and young people a stated national priority. Psychologists for Social Change and the below signed support this recommendation, as well as the other 27 made in the report, and join the call for their implementation.

We particularly welcome the opportunity to include emotional well-being and resilience into the school curriculum. If embedded as a whole-school approach this learning could benefit pupils as well as teachers by supporting the creation of a well-being minded culture within schools and moving away from the current ‘exam factory’ mentality.  Greater collaborative efforts across government and professionals, as suggested in the inquiry by head teachers, could support the development of this approach. We believe much could be gained from a genuine and properly resourced multi-agency approach, including a health, social, education, third sector and others joint response to tackling issues of the nation’s children’s wellbeing. Additionally, we urge the government to ensure cross-governmental work on the whole-school approach is taken forward to support its implementation.

As well as a multi-disciplinary approach to service provision we believe services need to be embedded in the community rather than in clinic-based settings. Many children and young people are unable to access clinic-based services because they are unable to attract a medical model diagnosis. We support the development of the ‘missing middle’ based on the ‘iceberg model of services’ which would use a multiple adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) informed approach to service delivery. This would allow referrals to be assessed based on observed levels of distress rather than diagnostic labels. 
We also support the call by the Royal College of Psychiatrists for improvements to data collection to aid our understanding of why the mental health of children and young people has increased over recent years.  This requires the inclusion of ‘non-diagnosed conditions’ and ‘other distress’ in the methodological approach used. We agree that this would be essential in developing a holistic prevalence picture. This data is also crucial in developing adequate prevention, planning.
In light of the above considerations, we, the undersigned, call on Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services, Vaughan Gething AM and the Welsh Government to implement the recommendations made in the Mind Over Matter report and make the wellbeing and mental health of children, young people in Wales a national priority. 

Signed by:
Psychologists for Social Change South Wales 
Jen Daffin, Clinical Psychologist in Training Cardiff University 
Matt Yates, Clinical Psychologist in Training Cardiff University
Lou Peters, Clinical Psychologist in Training Cardiff University 
Allison Hulmes, Professional Officer BASW Cymru