Our mental health services are routinely failing young people. A new report by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) has found that specialist services are turning away nearly one in four of those who come to them for help. Funding for young people’s services is at risk of being diverted to other areas, and, as a result of this under-resourcing, many young people are often only able to get help at extreme crisis points.

While mental health providers across the board are often found to be inadequate, young people face their own specific barriers to treatment. Róisín McCallion, who has struggled with anorexia and related disorders since the age of 11, said, “My problems were often dismissed as part of ‘growing up’, which put me off seeking further support and made me feel like I was overreacting.”She was ultimately denied treatment because of what her local NHS trust described as “complexities with funding.”

Meanwhile, rates of mental health problems among young people keep on increasing. The number under-18s admitted to hospital for self-harm has soared in recent years. The EPI found that many of the young people’s mental health services they visited were “experiencing increasing demand”. In Essex, the number of referrals to specialist services had more than doubled in a year, from 3000 to 7000.

“(Doctors) said that I would gain little from treatment because – despite me explicitly saying that it was me seeking help this time – I was a chronic case who didn’t seem capable of change. I’d be a wasted hour of their week” 

The feeling that children and young people are likely to be actively disbelieved by mental health professionals was shared by Sarah, who began treatment for depression at 15. Speaking under a pseudonym, Sarah reveals that she “continuously felt patronised” by those who were treating her. “One professional even tried to tell me (that I was mentally ill) because I consumed alcohol, even though I barely drank,” she remembers. “I also felt they only ever spoke to my parents about my condition, even though at this time I was 20, and had been sectioned in an adult unit.”

So why are our mental health services turning young people away? Funding difficulties and a high threshold for qualification, which means that something has to go very wrong before some services intervene, are two major factors. Sarah Brennan, Chief Executive of Young Minds said, “The government must make sure that the extra money for children’s mental health goes where it’s intended. Jeremy Hunt has described CAMHS as the single weakest area of NHS provision, but, after years of underfunding, the promised improvements will never happen if the new money is diverted.”

Speaking to Dazed, a young girl who wished to remain anonymous said she was refused treatment because doctors had decided she was a hopeless case. She's still recovering from eating disorder that emerged when she was at school. “They said that I would gain little from treatment”, she told me, “Because – despite me explicitly saying that it was me seeking help this time – I was a chronic case who didn’t seem capable of change. I’d be a wasted hour of their week.”

In most cases, people are cut off from children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) as soon as they turn eighteen. This transition period can be a huge setback for patients, and disrupts their support at a crucial time in their lives. Sarah said she felt completely abandoned after her eighteenth birthday. “They literally just say goodbye and leave you on your own, as soon as you’re classified as an adult.” After she stopped counselling, her condition deteriorated, and she was eventually hospitalised.

This crisis in young mental health needs to be urgently addressed. More investment in early interventions would literally save lives, as well as millions of pounds spent on more intensive support. Funding for children’s mental health needs to be guaranteed, so that it isn’t diverted towards ‘more important’ services. Most importantly, young people need to be believed, supported and given a say in their own treatment programs, rather than dismissed and patronised.