MORE needs to be done to help young people with mental health problems at an earlier stage, according to one of Berkshire’s children’s mental health experts.

This comes after Janette Fullwood, head of children, young people and families at East Berkshire Clinical Commissioning Group (EBCCG) told Bracknell councillors that “young people are quite good at covering things up”.

She continued: “I certainly would not want to be a young person growing up today.”

Ms Fullwood was speaking to councillors about EBCCG’s local transformation plan, which outlines how the authority is aiming to support young people with mental health issues.

One of four new outcomes targeted by the group was to improve access for children and young people to early help to meet their emerging emotional and mental health needs.

Later in the meeting, Ms Fullwood added: “I think we really need to look at early intervention and prevention.

“I wanted to see a strong offer in East Berkshire, but that might be a step too far because we have three very different local authorities.

“If you have something like anxiety and you’re waiting for a number of months to get support, that can have such a significant impact. We need to move away from a medical model. It could be dealt with with early intervention.”

Ms Fullwood was questioned about the potential difficulties of working with a number of different local authorities by councillors.

Ms Fullwood said: “Mental health in young people is like a hot potato. Now one in eight people will report a mental health condition.

“We are seeing more complex needs from young people and there is a greater demand on these services.

“But we are in a place now where the system is working. We need to work in an integrated way. The previous plan was very much a CCG plan. This one is signed by all the director’s of children’s services (of the three different local authorities in Bracknell, Slough, and Windsor and Maidenhead).

“It is not about too many (local authorities), it is about about how everybody works together and what is the public facing message. We need to work in a more targeted way. In the last six months it already feels like it is in a better place. This is about sharing responsibility which is the whole essence of the local transformation plan.”

Another goal EBCCG identified was to encourage schools, communities, families and young people to work together to ‘build resilience, learning from young people themselves how best to help them cope with life’s ups and downs”.

Ms Fullwood told councillors that the group was working with college students to help them set up their own support circles.

She said: “We are not asking them to be professionals. We are training year 12s to set up wellbeing groups in their schools and start sharing these messages.”

Councillors also questioned why ‘inappropriate referrals’ had risen by 50 per cent in the last year, and Ms Fullwood said that this was because some of those who are referred “don’t meet requirements”.

She added the authority was doing a “deep dive” into the reasons behind this increase but added that the group does not tell people to “go away” and that they are directed towards other local support services.

And one support programme that came in for a lot of praise from councillors was the KOOTH service, which is an online health information environment where young people can use forums and messaging services to talk about their issues.

Ms Fullwood claimed the service had “taken off in Bracknell Forest” as there were 167 registrations from July – September 2018, with 245 logging on in this same period.

Councillor John Harrison said: “Young people are more likely to talk about their worries with their peer groups. To be able to go online and speak to somebody safely is a really good thing and I am really proud to hear about that. There is a real passion to help youngsters with mental issues.”

Councillors also heard that commissioning for support for 100 young people with eating disorders has already been exceeded and that the group is looking at Surrey’s eating disorder work to see what they can learn from them.

Ms Fullwood answered councillors questions at a meeting of Bracknell Forest Council’s adult social care, health and housing overview and scrutiny panel on Tuesday, January 15.