Referrals to Mental Health Units Rise by 50%

A BBC investigation has today revealed that referrals to child mental health units from UK primary schools for pupils aged 11 and under have risen by nearly 50% in three years.

In Kent and Medway Kent Community Foundation (KCF) is supporting a variety of mental health initiatives for school aged children. Fegans is just one of Kent’s mental health charities that has successfully applied for support from KCF.

Over the last three years, KCF has awarded Fegans, grants totalling £54,000 to support its work with children’s mental health. The most recent grant of £4,950 was awarded for their work to offer professional counselling to support vulnerable young people in crisis.

In their application to KCF, Fegans said, “Recent statistics reveal that in the UK four children in every classroom have a mental health problem. We know that young people are struggling with issues including, bullying, anxiety, abuse, domestic violence and self-harm and we want to support them with counselling.”

With the funds from the most recent KCF grant, Fegans has been able to offer access to mental health support, with a programme including counselling that re-orientates children's perspectives of themselves to enable positive self-image and greatly increase emotional resilience. Troubled families are given one to one support to help them understand their actions and behaviours. The families have parent support workers working alongside them to identify family difficulties and give them information and practical help to make positive choices.

Children’s mental health charities interested in applying for funding, should visit our apply page: www.kentcf.org.uk/apply