Children and young people mental health services: school counselling and community support

Community mental health and wellbeing services (July 2023 to March 2024)

People accessing the supports and services

Local authorities reported that 82,938 people used the community-based supports and services between July 2023 and March 2024, 10,120 of whom were family members and carers.

51% of the service users were recorded as female and 45% as male, and 4% were recorded as having identified in another way. 47% of the service users were of secondary school age, 44% were of primary school age and under, and 9% were of post-school age.

Referral routes

The most common routes into the community supports and services were recorded as being through schools and self-referrals.

Referrals to third sector partners were the most common form of onward referral from the supports and services.

Reasons for accessing the supports and services

Anxiety was the most common reason recorded for people accessing the community supports and services. The categories below do not reflect formal diagnoses of mental health conditions, but are the reasons given to the services as to why people have sought support. Individuals may have presented more than once and/or with a number of different concerns.

Type of support or service accessed

78% of users accessed positive mental wellbeing services and 22% accessed emotional distress services. Positive mental wellbeing services are generally preventative supports that are self-completed or may form part of general wellbeing education, e.g. digital cognitive behavioural therapy, presentations and training. Emotional distress services are generally supports led by staff in either a one-to-one or group setting, e.g. counselling, art therapy and practitioner-facilitated support groups.

In respect of service users from at-risk groups (i.e. those known to be at higher risk of experiencing poor mental health, such as care-experienced children or LGBT+ young people), 58% accessed positive mental wellbeing services and 42% accessed emotional distress services.

Outcomes

Of the service users who were recorded as having used a positive mental wellbeing service, 24,425 (58%) said that they had an improved outcome. Of those who used an emotional distress service, 7,106 (58%) said that they had an improved outcome.

Of the service users in at-risk groups who were recorded as having used a positive mental wellbeing service, 5,409 (71%) said that they had an improved outcome. Of those in at-risk groups who used an emotional distress service, 2,863 (52%) said that they had an improved outcome.

It should be noted that these figures are unlikely to reflect the full impact of the supports and services. In some cases, the person will still have been in receipt of support and will not have been ready to be asked about outcomes. It is also particularly challenging to assess the impact of supports that are preventative in nature, as is the case for many positive mental wellbeing services. In addition, local authorities are not obliged to report data on at-risk groups.