Coronavirus (COVID-19) mental health transition and recovery plan - children and young people's mental health: CRWIA

3. Will there be different impacts on different groups of children and young people?

Children and Young People's Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board: Positive Impact for all groups of children and young people. The work of the Board will focus on prevention and early support as well as promotion of good mental health and effective services for children, young people and their families to access. The voices and experiences of children, young people and their families are key to the development of all aspects of work relating to the Children and Young People's Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board. This includes decision making, service design, delivery and evaluation.

The Joint Delivery Board has developed a Principles for Participation and Engagement paper to ensure that meaningful participation and engagement with children and young people is embedded within our processes and actions as the work of the Board progresses.

The principles are underpinned by Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), ensuring every child has the right to be heard in matters affecting them and to participate in the life of their family, community and society; as well as the commitment to The Promise, which is aligned with the National Performance Framework and embeds as its vision the commitment that Scotland's children should grow up loved, safe and respected so that they realise their full potential.

An addendum to support engagement with 3-5 years old has also been developed which aligns to the Principles for Participation and Engagement.

CAMHS Improvement: The CAMHS Improvement programme of work will support improvements to both CAMHS and Neurodevelopmental services for children and young people. These services should be available from 0-25 years. This Improvement programme will affect children and young people within the CAMHS system, and those with a neurodevelopmental profile of need.

Eating Disorder Policy: Eating Disorder policy and service improvement is included in the CAMHS improvement programme. Improvements made through this programme will positively impact children and young people with an eating disorder. CAMHS should be available from 0-25 years.

Community Mental Health: The Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Community Services Grant (5-24 year olds) provides young people and families with additional support for mental and emotional distress and support for their wellbeing and resilience, delivered in a community setting. The fund provides Local Authorities with an additional £15 Million per annum to provide new and enhanced supports and services for children and young people. Services are guided by a supporting Framework, developed by the Scottish Government and COSLA chaired Children and Young People's Mental Health and Wellbeing Programme Board, and now overseen by the Joint Delivery Board. By provide an increase in services providing prevention and emotional distress support these services will positively impact on 5-24 year olds (up to 26 care levers), their parents and carers.

Perinatal and Early Years Mental Health: The aim of the Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board is for positive impacts to be experienced not only directly for infants but indirectly by helping to support their parents and families. The policy work being undertaken by the Programme Board will allow the Scottish Government, Third Sector organisations and NHS to work collaboratively together to help identify any infants that may need help and support either directly or indirectly.

There will be a particular focus on children who fall in to groups identified in the Perinatal and Infant Mental Health EQIA, who may experience varying impacts depending on their individual set of circumstances. An Equalities Subgroup has been established to identify and discuss any gaps in the Perinatal and Infant Mental Health EQIA. Where there are gaps and any inequalities identified, the group members will also consider if the child's rights have been affected. The actions that are identified by the members will be presented to the Infant Mental Health Implementation and Advisory group for their consideration. The actions completed by the group will aim to have a positive impact on infants that have experienced mental health problems due to the following factors and others that may be identified through discussions:

• Experience of domestic abuse in their family/homes
• Experience of substance abuse in their family/homes
• Poverty
• Perinatal mental health problems and relationship difficulties
• Barriers in accessing help and services relating to communication and cultural differences
• Trauma

Children and Young People's Mental Health: The policy exists to support the improvement of mental health in children and young people in Scotland, therefore all groups of children will be impacted. This includes children and young people with protected characteristics. The policy will also impact the families of children and young people. However, this is a complementary rather than competing interest. It is not anticipated that there will be any negative impact directly resulting from this policy.

In the development of new and existing policies, the Children and Young People's Mental Health Improvement policy team identify and consider groups of children and young people with protected characteristics who may be particularly affected by the policy area. This is done in line the wider approach to addressing equalities issues in mental health and wellbeing policy which is coordinated through the Mental Health Directorate Equalities and Human Rights Forum. In addition, regular consultation is undertaken with a wide variety of stakeholders and equalities groups to ensure that policy aligns with the needs of all of those who have specific protected characteristics such as LGBTI young people, young people from the gypsy traveller community and minority ethnic children and young people.

Along with other minority groups, we are aware that Young Gypsy Travellers experience higher risks of poor mental health than the general population, and often find it difficult to access community supports. As a result, we are funding MECOPP (Minority Ethnic Carers Of People Project) and Progress in Dialogue to ensure the needs of young Gypsy Travellers are met by community services and that they are accessible to this group.

Student Mental Health and Wellbeing: The student population is Scotland is diverse and we continue to work with partners to identify specific needs within this population and respond accordingly.

The National Trauma Training Programme (NTTP) includes a work-stream with a particular focus on developing tailored training and support for organisations who support care experienced babies, children and young people to support delivery of The Promise. The NTTP as a whole aims to benefit all children through a raised awareness of psychological trauma and the implementation of trauma informed approaches across all sectors of the workforce.