The Minister for Patient Safety, Women’s Health and Mental Health, my noble Friend Baroness Merron, has made the following written statement:
Nothing says more about the state of a nation than the wellbeing of its children. That is why the Government made a clear commitment in our manifesto to improve the mental health of young people through specialist support and earlier intervention. We continue to make progress on delivering these manifesto commitments, such as access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, as part of our drive to reform the NHS through our 10-year health plan and create opportunities for young people through mission-led Government.
Today, I wish to inform the House that the Government are providing continued top-up funding in 2025-26 for 24 early support hubs in England and running an evaluation of the support that they deliver, backed by £7 million.
Building on a shared outcomes fund project being delivered in 2024-25, this means that over 12,000 children and young people will continue to have access to innovative early mental health and wellbeing support at an early stage.
In our manifesto, we committed to providing open access mental health support for children and young people through Young Futures hubs. Working with the Home Office, the Department for Education and colleagues across Government, our hope is that the evidence and insights collected through the early support hubs evaluation will support the delivery of Young Futures hubs, alongside best practice and learning from other initiatives. This learning will inform our ambitions for community mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people, and ensure that they have access to the kinds of support they need.
As well as providing mental health support in every community, we are also continuing work to recruit 8,500 new mental health workers to cut waiting times and ensure that people can access treatment and support earlier.
I know that we still have a long way to go to ensure that all young people are provided with access to the mental health support they need. However, today’s investment marks a step in the right direction to support children and young people’s mental health.
Early Support Hubs Receiving Funding
Hub Name
Constituency
ABL Health
Mansfield (Steve Yemm)
Base 25
Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss)
Brook Young People
Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham)
West Central London Mind
Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake)
Centre 33
Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner)
ChilyPep
Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis)
The Children’s Society
Torbay (Steve Darling)
The Children’s Society
Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson)
CHUMS Charity
Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson)
Family Action
Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier)
Isle of Wight Youth Trust
Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley)
Lancashire Mind
Chorley (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Mancroft Advice Project (MAP)
Norwich South (Clive Lewis)
Noah’s Ark Centre
Halifax (Kate Dearden)
No Limits South
Southampton, Test (Satvir Kaur)
Onside
Worcester (Tom Collins)
People Potential Possibilities
Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales)
Sheffield Futures
Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed)
Spring North
Blackburn (Adnan Hussain)
Warrington Youth Zone Ltd
Warrington Youth (Sarah Hall)
YMCA St Helens
St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Marie Rimmer)
Young Devon
North Devon (Ian Roome)
Youth Enquiry Service
Wycombe (Emma Reynolds)
Young Persons Advisory Service
Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson)
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