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All professionals working with children should develop mental health skills to give them a better understanding of children’s mental health, and how to prevent problems, according to a government  expert on child and adolescent mental health.
 
Bob Jezzard, the Department of Health’s senior policy advisor on child and adolescent mental health and a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Maudsley NHS trust, warned that “a single crass comment made by a professional can do enormous and lasting damage to a child’s mental health”.

Jezzard was speaking last week at a London conference on the health and care of children, organised by Gate House in association with 0-19. He welcomed proposals in the Green Paper, Every Child Matters, to develop a  multi-agency strategy for developing mental health skills.

Ten per cent of children and young people have a mental disorder which persists over time and can impair their future development. The National Service Framework for children has set provisional targets for a comprehensive child and adolescent mental health service across the country – including mental health promotion and early intervention – by 2006.

Child and adolescent mental health services should grow  by at least 10 per cent each year across the service , measured either by increased staffing, more patient contacts or more investment, says the NSF’s emerging findings document.

 
“But nothing can happen unless we have people with the skills and competences to undertake the work,” said Jezzard. This includes people with commissioning expertise, and the specific skills needed for partnership working, he added.

Read the children’s National Service Framework’s Emerging Findings document at http://www.doh.gov.uk/nsf/children/emergingfindings.pdf