AQW 24829/22-27


Ms Sian Mulholland
Alliance Party
North Antrim


Tabled Date: 21/03/2025
Answered On Date: 07/04/2025
Priority Written: No


Question:
To ask the Minister of Health, given that the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper acknowledges the rising number of young people with mental health conditions who are economically inactive, to detail any new mental health support pathways being introduced to help prevent young people from long-term benefit dependency.


Answer:
The ten year Mental Health Strategy, published in June 2021 by my predecessor, sets out 35 actions as a roadmap for the future delivery of mental health services. Actions 1 and 2 in the Mental Health Strategy focus on mental health promotion, early intervention and prevention.
Under these actions, work is underway in partnership with the Department for the Economy to bring together representatives from universities, further education colleges and training providers to consider how to improve mental health promotion, early intervention and prevention for students and trainees.
A small grants programme was put in place to enable additional supports and interventions to be delivered in those settings. To date £160k has been allocated through small grants which has enabled the delivery of enhanced training for staff, wellness days, one to one counselling services, awareness raising workshops, meaningful activities, resilience programmes and toolkits and information resources.
Grant recipients reported positive feedback from staff and students/trainees who took part in the projects funded, including improved wellbeing and understanding of their mental health; improved coping skills and self- management; improved relationships with peers and with staff; improved confidence about the future; and improved retention of trainees on training programmes.
Further to this, the Public Health Agency commissions a number of programmes which deliver early intervention supports for children, young people and families including:
Early Intervention Support Service, a Family Support Team in each of the Trust localities aimed at providing a 12—14 week programme of support for families with emerging vulnerabilities aimed at addressing problems early and reducing risk of crisis escalation. The Service supports 650 families annually.
Regional Mental Health Awareness Training Programmes, delivered directly to young people both in a school and a youth environment on a regional basis.
Targeted Prevention services for Young People, - this service develops and delivers age appropriate drug & alcohol life skills/harm reduction programmes for young people in the age ranges of 11-13 years, 14-15 years and 16+ years across Northern Ireland. These programmes are delivered to young people identified as being at risk of substance misuse and are not delivered to the universal population of young people misuse (universal substance misuse education is delivered via schools).
Youth Engagement Service, delivered to children and young people aged 11-25 throughout each of the five Health and Social Care Trust areas, to provide universal social and recreational services to children and young people aged 11-25 years as a platform for further engagement and to provide early and appropriate information and in-service support to children and young people aged 11-25 on the issues that are causing them concern.