Yet research by Young minds. found that the average wait after being referred to mental health services was 392 days in 2023/24, meaning young people struggling with their mental health aren't receiving the support they need.

Last week Youth Echo partnered with the Haringey Community Collaborative to co-deliver a VCS forum on young people’s mental health. The session brought together experts with local organisations from across the borough. The Coproduction and Engagement Team within Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) shared how they are creating meaningful opportunities for young people to influence how mental health services are shaped, ensuring that care is responsive, person-centred, and that the voices and experiences of young people are embedded across service design, delivery, and improvement.    

Ruth the CEO of Open Door, then spoke about their offer of free psychological therapies for young people aged 12-24 who live in Haringey, reminding the audience of the importance of not avoiding the subject of suicide with people struggling with their mental health.    The Engine Room, our hosts for the event, shared about the success of their youth programme COMPACT which aims to empower young people in the community, with Andrew ending the presentation with a compelling message about the need for more sustainable funding for youth services in the borough..    A key takeaway from the workshop was the importance of remembering we are not experts and that our job is not to diagnose but instead to encourage a young person we are concerned about to access professional support.   

However, we know that increasing access to services is not enough. We must also take a preventative approach when it comes to addressing poor mental health in young people, through tackling the underlying causes and creating a better environment for positive mental wellbeing. 

That's why Youth Echo as part of their social action delivery is working with the young people involved in the CAMHS’ coproduction group to design campaigns aimed at tackling some of what they feel are the biggest causes of poor mental health: Social media and misinformation. 

A research study by Barnardo’s found that 27% of young people using social media sites for three or more hours a day had symptoms of mental ill health, which was more than double than those not using social media at all, highlighting the detrimental impact screen time is having on young people's health today. 

When designing their campaigns the young people spoke about how negative content online and a lack of regulation about false information had a negative impact on their mental health. They also highlighted the lack of physical third spaces to connect with their peers.  With 30% of closures of youth clubs in London between 2010 and 2019 there have been increasingly less opportunities for social connection available to young people locally.  Youth clubs offer an important physical third space to young people that isn’t school or home. These closures mean that for many young people the only third space available to a lot of young people is social media.   

During the session the young people designed two campaigns. One campaign focuses on creating more access to physical third spaces so that young people have somewhere to go that isn’t home or school, and a place to socialise that isn’t online.  

The other campaign is combatting the impact of negative online content and myths online pose to young people by working with medical professionals to create positive factual content, so that young people can have access to the information on a platform they already use.  

Youth Echo will be working with the young people over the next few months to make these campaigns a reality. Watch this space to hear more soon!