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7 Recommendations from You in our New Mental Health Report
We all want to lead happy, healthy lives and to have the support we need for our mental health whenever we need it. This is the world our members want to see for all Care Experienced people, who can face greater need for mental health support.
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For several years, Care Experienced members of our organisation have been calling for changes to how their mental health is supported. Members also told us through our National Membership Survey and Members’ Assembly in 2021 that they want to influence change around mental health policy and practice. To build on this, we’ve worked with Care Experienced people across Scotland – from Ayrshire to Shetland – to ensure their thoughts and feelings get heard. After consulting 60+ members, we’ve created our new report ‘Tend our Light’ Mental Health Findings from our Annual Participation Programme.
Care Experienced people told us how they describe and understand mental health, if their care experience has impacted their mental health, and what their views are around different services and supports. Importantly, we also wanted to know what changes they would specifically like to see. From the views shared with us, we’ve offered seven ways for Scotland to understand how to ‘Tend the Light’ for Care Experienced people:
Why is it important to focus on mental health?
When asked how care experience had affected their mental health, our members spoke about trauma and adversity, challenges with feeling loved and belonging, and the impact of being stigmatised due to their care experience. Every child has the right to grow up feeling safe in a family environment, free from discrimination, and around happiness, love and understanding. Through the experiences our members have shared, Care Experienced people’s rights have not always been fully realised – taking a toll on their mental health.
79% of online survey respondents said that poor mental health impacted how they make and keep friends. Being Care Experienced has meant many young people have been less likely to experience loving relationships, and experiences lean more to being unsupported, isolated, and lonely. There were some positive experiences of the impact of care on members’ mental health, with a few participants finding care to be an escape from a negative situation and supporting them towards positive achievements, and that they had mental strength from going through tough experiences.
Every person we spoke to felt their care experience had impacted upon their mental health in some way.
1. Dedicated mental health services for
Care Experienced people 2. Lifelong mental health support for
Care Experienced people 3. Every child in care pro-actively offered mental health support 4. Supporting loving relationships for
Care Experienced people 5. Tailored and specialist mental health training about care experience 6. Mental health education for Care
Experienced people 7. The right to choose mental health support and access it quickly
Lynda Greig, NRB Member
We consistently heard that access to mental health services is challenging and needs serious change, with almost 7/10 respondents telling us that they were unable to access mental health support when they needed it, with a lack of availability and access criteria being too strict.
If Scotland commits to realising the 7 recommendations in this report and we secure commitment from those who have power to make change happen, together we could create a world where Care Experienced people can thrive in life.
We’ll be sharing these findings with Corporate Parents, the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee and other key decisionmakers who we know have the power to make the changes asked for. We have also been able to share this evidence with our Training and Education team, who have put on two mental health training events for Corporate Parents – with more to come. The Promise are also focusing on mental health for Care Experienced people and want to work with us closely on this in the future. This will include influencing: • Scottish Government’s refresh of the Mental Health
Strategy 2017-27 • Scotland’s new Suicide Prevention Strategy • The Children and Young
People’s Mental Health &
Wellbeing: A Knowledge and
Skills Framework for the
Scottish Workforce by NHS
Education for Scotland
Thank you again to every person who has shared their views on mental health, whether this year as part of the Annual Programme, or in the past. This has helped us shape a national evidence base of what our members think and feel about this important area!
