Wellbeing boosts life chances. When children feel mentally well, they do better at school, build stronger relationships and reach their life-long potential. This report provides new evidence and analysis of the long-term economic benefits of investing early in children’s mental health.
Families, schools and communities are struggling to manage and respond to the severity of the problem of children’s mental wellbeing. An increasing number of children are struggling with their mental health. Currently, around one in five children aged 8-16 are likely to have a diagnosable mental health issue, according to the latest NHS Digital evidence. The problem is getting worse. Using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), the Understanding Society dataset demonstrates that, overall, children’s mental health has declined in the decade between 2011/12 and 2021/22. These statistics summarise a series of profound personal crises for individual children and their families, and systemic challenge for schools, children’s services and our NHS.
Undoubtedly, there is a moral imperative to reverse this downward trend in children’s mental health. Those working in policy and implementation agree that earlier access to support is key but is persistently difficult to implement. The Government’s plan for public services and the NHS includes multiple commitments on prevention, including investment in Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) within schools and colleges, and funding for Early Support Hubs. However, in 2023/24, only 36% of the referred children and young people received mental health support within the NHS’s four-week target and 34,000 went for two years without being seen. While MHSTs have expanded the reach of in-school support, 40% of school leaders state that staff capacity has blocked them from making the most of this offer. In a stretched system with demand for crisis support outstripping supply, the capacity of new and existing services remains a critical barrier to delivering the full impact of earlier intervention and approaches to prevention that support schools.
It is time for a robust, up-to-date understanding of the long-term economic impacts of children’s mental health to deliver a persuasive case for the value of investing in this area. Our analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS, a long-term research project tracking early and later-life outcomes for a group of people born in 2000-2002) suggests that even small improvements in children’s mental health could boost GCSE attainment, and reduce their probability of being excluded from school or requiring Special Educational Needs (SEN) support in secondary school. Putting this into context, taking steps to reverse the decline in children’s mental health, could:
- boost GCSE attainment by 0.1-1.6 grades per child;
- reduce the likelihood that a child requires secondary school SEN support by 0.1-1.1 percentage points (ppts); and
- reduce the likelihood of a child being excluded in secondary school by 0.1-0.4ppts.
Improving children’s mental health could also generate long-term economic benefits. Our analysis suggests the long-term benefits of improved childhood mental health stretches into adulthood through higher take home pay, tax revenue and lower demand on public services. Reversing the last decade of decline could generate economic benefits of £5,300 per child over the course of their lifetime, or £51 billion across all children at school in a given year. This is made up of additional economic benefits of £50 billion from employment outcomes, £17 million from the reduced costs of exclusion, and £606 million from SEN support costs. We need urgent, effective action to unlock these long-term social and economic benefits.
The NHS is a vital partner and provider in achieving this change, but it simply cannot deliver it alone. Intervening earlier, and acting to boost positive mental health and prevent problems emerging, is a cross-sector responsibility. The evidence backs up what children themselves tell us: childhood mental health is intertwined with life at school, at home and day-to-day experience in the community.
We need more effective support, with the private, public and social sectors working together to achieve this. Many charities such as Place2Be work alongside, and with, government-funded support to reach as many children as possible. They offer school-based counselling, family support, and training and assistance to those working with children and young people. By offering accessible support in various forms, charities in the children’s mental health space are vital to helping reverse this trend, especially for children in need of help who don’t meet the threshold for statutory clinical support. By effectively drawing on insights and skills of school leadership, combining public and charity sector forces, embedding whole school approaches, and connecting those who urgently need help now to mental health services, we should ensure every child can get the support they deserve.