Council to adapt to new mental health pressures

A senior councillor has asked education chiefs whether the mental health crisis amongst children and young people is a permanent or temporary issue.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet on Tuesday, November 26 councillors agreed a five year strategic plan for Additional Learning Needs (ALN) and Inclusion.

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The new plan aims to address the “significant challenges” in the provision of support for children with special educational needs which has emerged in recent years.

Cabinet member for a connected Powys, Liberal Democrat Cllr Jake Berriman said: “Post Covid-19 we seem to be seeing a societal change in younger people do we have an academic view or from experience of whether this is a shift that will be temporary or do we think this is a permanent change.”

“Will we come out the other side of in x number of years, is there any indications of that.”

He pointed out that this change will have huge cost implications for the council’s social services and education departmental budgets.

Director of education Richard Jones said: “It’s my view that we won’t return to the education system we had before the pandemic.”

Dr Jones believed the schools had been under “significant challenge” even before Covid-19 and that problems needed addressing back then.

Dr Jones said: “A new type of need has emerged since the pandemic.

“It’s not just the level it’s the complication.

“This strategy does put the youngster and the family at the centre because the system needs to be agile and flexible to respond to a need we have not seen before.”

He believed that trying to return to a pre-pandemic approach would be wrong.

Dr Jones said; “We need to work with what we’ve got in this context and improve from this position.

“You look across Wales and the four nations you see that demand is increasing in schools – this is very much an area of focus for education.

ALN and inclusion service manager, Simon Anderson added:  “This is the new norm, and we have to adapt to it.”