Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan sets out a number of actions to support children and young people’s mental health, including a specific action to improve our understanding of the prevalence of self-harm which will guide our policy approach moving forwards.

We have been working with key stakeholders to gather evidence to inform next steps around self-harm policy development, with particular focus on the needs of children and young people. I chaired a meeting with opposition party spokespeople in November 2020 to seek views on improving support for those who self-harm. I agreed to engage again with this Cross-party group once policy options have been developed further.

As part of this, we are supporting the Samaritans’ upcoming Self-harm Digital Policy Gathering event which aims to explore key themes relating to self-harm support and policy, with representatives from research, health, social care, emergency services, third sector, and persons with lived experience. Information from this event will inform the policy approach going forward.

Throughout the pandemic young people and families have told us that they need more community based support for mental and emotional distress and support for their wellbeing and resilience. As a result, last November we announced an additional £15 million to local authorities for the financial year 2020 to 2021 to both provide services in response to the pandemic and to fund new and enhanced Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Support and Services for 5-24 year olds. A further £15 million is available in the next financial year for these new and enhanced services, which focus on prevention, early intervention, and the treatment of distress.

Amongst other measures, we also fund Young Scot to provide enhanced digital resources on mental health and wellbeing via their Aye Feel platform, which includes advice and support on self-harm.