Disabled children lack support for mental health

8 February 2010

YoungMinds survey – majority of parents face barriers to help

A new survey by children’s mental health charity YoungMinds shows a third of parents with disabled children don’t get the support they need for their children’s emotional or mental health problems.

Disabled children and young people are more likely to experience emotional and mental health problems. However 60% of families who do receive help question its worth and 87% found barriers to getting help. These include lack of available services, long waiting lists, being blamed for their child’s problems, and their child not fitting the criteria for support.

Parents responding to the survey suggested access to support urgently needed to be improved through:

- Better education for GPs
- Fast tracking  for families with very complex problems
- More parent support groups
- One point of access for all services

Find out more about the survey results on the YoungMinds website