It's official. Salford's children and young people are cracking up. According to Salford Council's own Partners IN Salford strategy, 6,000 children (12% of people aged 0-18) living in the city "might have some kind of mental wellbeing need".
"Salford has the highest rate of A&E attendances due to self-harm in Greater Manchester" it states, adding "The highest number of attendances is found among young people between the ages of 14 to 19."
The strategy also adds that "half of all mental illness…start by the age of 14" and that "potentially 25-50% of mental health problems are preventable through interventions in the early years."
Julie Blower, founder of the Tree Tops Counselling Salford, sees the problem first hand every day and is trying to make a difference `through interventions in the early years'. But she and her voluntary counsellors are getting swamped with cases and no funding.
"Last year we had to reduce the amount of young people who we could help because of funding" she says "There is a waiting list in the schools that we work with and there's a massive problem.
"One of the schools quoted that ten per cent of its pupils had problems last year, after working out how many pupils were there and how many had been seen by us" she explains "That's ten per cent of the whole school. If you equate how many children we have living in Salford, it's a lot. You do the maths. If there's about 60,000 young people in Salford that's around six thousand who have problems. And we helped 520."
Julie founded Tree Tops in 2009 when she discovered that there was a huge need for counselling services in Salford, and the issues dealt with cover all complex aspects of young people's lives, which she tries to list…
"Bullying, not being able to emotionally deal with the consequences of their feelings, not being able to express themselves which leads to self harm…we've got a lot of self harm in Salford, some of them extreme cases… relationship issues, parenting issues, exam issues, peer issues just absolutely all sort of things…"
Originally the counselling service was for adults and young people but, because of lack of resources they have had to shut the door for adults and concentrate meagre resources on children and young people.
"It's just grown, and it's grown, and it's grown" Julie explains "But we've had to reduce the number of counsellors from 32 when we started in 2010 to just ten at the moment."
That's ten children's counsellors for the whole of Salford. The city does have a Child and Adolescent Mental Health team (CAMH), which has specialist psychologists and the like, but Julie says its services have been cut by 68%.
It's a scandal which mirrors Salford City Council's own internal reports on the mental health of its citizens, which state that the fall out from ConDem Government cuts will lead to "higher levels of depression and mental health problems" (see previous Salford Star article – click here).
Meanwhile Salford Council itself is cutting Education Welfare services, Connexions, even its Children's Holiday Camp and more (see previous Salford Star articles – click here and click here).
Altogether it's a toxic cocktail that's about to explode.
"If parents or care givers are suffering from unresolved mental health issues then, yes, it's having a knock on effect on the community and the children" Julie explains "Learned behaviour comes from adults to children, which is being unresolved. It's just a massive domino affect on relationships, the economy because people lose jobs…it's a perpetual cycle of issues; divorces, lack of work, crime, truancy, children not making academic achievements…
"…I've expected a massive mental health implosion in Salford since 2009 and it looks like it is here" she adds "Evidence and statistics speak for themselves. It's a mess."
Now Julie and Tree Tops are about to do something about it. They've launched a campaign with their young people called Fight The Pressure Salford, which is linked to a national campaign called Young Minds Vs, backed by the likes of Frankie Sandford of The Saturdays and Ed Miliband.
"I get to talk to a lot of young people and I know there are so many who are really suffering and struggling with life" says Frankie Sandford "That's why I really support the Young Minds Vs campaign because it's raising awareness of the importance of young people having good mental health and everything that can be done to make that happen, including young people getting access to help when they need it.
"I also think it's great that the campaign is being led by young people - it's all about their experiences and their voices are at the heart of it" she adds "That's why this campaign is different from others and that's why I support it."
Fight The Pressure Salford has boxing champ Jamie Moore on board and aims `to reduce the stigma of mental health in our own area, and to improve the service provisions'.
"We launched our own campaign to help our Salford youngsters because we're grass roots and there's not a lot we can do about the rest of the UK but we made the decision to try and do something about this in our own community" Julie explains "We're asking for assistance from everybody and anybody to make a difference to Salford children. We're looking for support, donations, corporate sponsorship, patrons, people whose voices can be heard…"
Fight The Pressure Salford is compiling a data base of people who want to help and, in May is also going to make a film starring Jamie Moore and local young people to publicise the issues further.
"It's whether people care enough to deal with the political issue because there's no money" says Julie "But that doesn't stop us trying to help Salford's children and younger people who are suffering…"
For further details of Tree Tops Counselling and Fight The Pressure Salford see the website www.treetopscounselling.co.uk or click here
You can also contact Tree Tops on 0161 728 7611
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