Children’s mental illness is treatable

Many health professionals are failing children
and young people in care who have a mental illness, the conference
was told.

Bruce Irvine, professional services
co-ordinator for Young Minds, said that research among 134 young
people in care in Oxfordshire showed that 67 per cent had a mental
health problem compared with 15 per cent of a control group of
young people not in care.

“It is a problem for me to get people to
believe that we can improve this,” he said. The NHS, he claimed,
was particularly at fault. Conduct disorder was regarded as
untreatable, he added. The foster carer, said Irvine, was often the
key, offering 24-hour care, seven days a week.