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Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) continue to support children and young people in need of specialist mental health support, although there have been adjustments in how that is delivered to accommodate coronavirus restrictions. Throughout the pandemic, CAMHS staff have embraced the use of Video Appointments (Near Me) and are one of the largest health service users of Near Me in Scotland. Near Me allows CAMHS to continue providing services for the most vulnerable children, young people and families, while reducing the need for travel and the risks of infection.

We fully appreciate the additional pressures, as well as the operational difficulties caused by Covid-19 and lockdown. That is why our recently published Transition and Recovery Plan, ‘Mental Health - Scotland's Transition and Recovery’, sets out a number of actions to progress improvement on access to CAMHS, including the implementation of our CAMHS Service Specification and the restarting of our improvement programme of work.

A key part of our approach is to ensure support is available that goes wider than NHS services. That is why we have already allocated £2 million to local authorities towards the development of Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Services and Support for 5-24 year olds, their families and carers; with further funding to come in the current financial year and beyond. Local partnerships are aiming to have the first community services in place from January 2021 onwards, with support available across all 32 local authorities in 2021.

We continue to prioritise support for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing in schools and education through actions such as the Mental Health in Schools Working Group which is developing and delivering new mental health training and learning resources, and the counselling in schools commitment.

In addition, Educational Psychologists who work in Local Authorities are providing support, guidance and resources through authority websites, telephone and virtual consultations to support vulnerable children, young people and their families.

Furthermore, we continue to invest in a range of other measures to support children and young people’s mental health. This includes providing enhanced digital resources on mental health and wellbeing available via Young Scot’s website and social media, and over £1 million to roll out the Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) programme on a national basis to those over the age of 16.