Minutes:
The Committee was reminded that, at its last meeting, it had agreed to invite the Belfast Youth Forum to present its mental health research report findings and recommendations: ‘Elephant in the Room: Exploring young people’s awareness of mental health in Northern Ireland’ to the Committee.
Accordingly, Miss. N. Mallaghan and Miss. B. Vance, representing the Belfast Youth Forum, were welcomed to the meeting by the Chairperson.
The representatives commenced by advising that, in July 2016, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child had recommended that the Northern Ireland Assembly should invest heavily in children and young people’s mental health services. Subsequently, at a follow up event in October 2016, organised by the Belfast Youth Forum, NI Youth Forum and youth@clc, over one hundred young people had expressed their frustration at the lack of mental health education and support services in Northern Ireland (NI). At that meeting, they had called for the UN’s recommendations to be fully implemented by the NI Assembly.
The Committee was advised that the Youth Forum, with the assistance of a local researcher, undertook a research report which was entitled ‘Elephant in the Room’. The project had been completed in partnership with young people from the NI Youth Forum and the Children’s Law Centre. They had conducted surveys and participated in focus groups that had engaged almost 1,300 young people NI wide. The data collected had then been used to create a research report and to make recommendations to the Assembly about the future of mental health advice and support for young people. This report had been launched on 4th October, 2018 in Stormont Buildings.
The representatives advised that the key findings could be broken down into three broad themes:
· Stigma - young people had reported that there was a huge negative stigma attached to mental health which in turn often led to a culture of silence, where young people were afraid to talk about mental health;
· Safe Spaces – 76% of those surveyed stated that young people were afraid to talk about mental health and the lack of safe spaces available to talk about it. Young people in the focus groups had stated that they felt that online was a good place to access mental health information. However, it was also noted that all of the young people who had taken part also felt that social media was responsible for increasing the negative stigma; and
· Schools and information – the young people had stated that the three most common places they would source information about mental health were online (59%), a family member (48%) and friends (45%). However, it was noted that the quality of this information was often inconsistent and often framed in a negative way.
The representatives explained that a key part of the youth led focus groups had involved asking the young people what solutions they would like to give the Government in the campaign to promote positive mental health and wellbeing. The following recommendations for Government had been compiled:
· Stigma – to support the creation of a youth led mental health campaign challenging the culture of silence and negative stigma. Working with young people to create a new and positive language around mental health by creating a mental health dictionary;
· Safe Spaces – to engage with young people to create and fund safe digital solutions to receive mental health information and support. The solutions would be designed by young people for young people; and
· Schools – to create a compulsory curriculum programme for all schools and colleges on mental health and wellbeing that would help to raise awareness and to challenge the stigma and one that enables young people to access consistent mental health information. This would be a long-term programme and be embedded in schools.
The representatives addressed a number of questions and concluded by advising that, following the launch of the report, the Youth Forum, along with its partner organisations, had commenced work to raise awareness of the campaign with young people and would be engaging with decision makers around the report’s recommendations, hence the reason for their attendance at Committee.
The Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, commended the Youth Forum representatives for their enthusiasm and for the role that the Youth Forum had played in the delivery of the report and promotion of mental health awareness.
Noted.