TVs, computers and smart phones should be banned from children’s bedrooms as part of a “five-a-day”-style approach to mental health, according to a leading private school headmaster.
Clear routines – similar to those designed to boost consumption of fruit and vegetables – are needed to insulate pupils from the pressures of modern life, said Adam Pettitt, head of Highgate School, north London.
He said pupils needed more sleep, free of distractions such as Facebook and Instagram, to combat a rise in the number of children with low self-esteem, depression and anxiety.
Lesbians, gays and bisexuals are more likely to have long-standing mental health problems and are twice as likely to have had bad experiences with their GP.
In one of the biggest surveys of homosexuals in England, researchers from Cambridge University found that 12 per cent of lesbian women and almost 19 per cent of bisexual women reported mental health problems, compared with six per cent of heterosexual women.
Meeting with Commissioners AGENDA Wednesday 27th August 2014. 10.30am.
1. Examples & Experiences of poor or Zero-User Involvement.
2. Proposals for Genuine User Involvement (Proposals & Ideas), Independent User & Carers Forum, Mental Health Charter, Three step process of User Engagement & Consultation, Patient’s Council and ladder of participation.
3. Joint Steering Group meetings needed! (Trust, Commissioners, Local Authority, Independent Sector and Users & Carers.
4. Funding for Users’ Group.
5. A.O.B.
Suicide should not be hidden away but instead discussed with children to aid their understanding, claims a kids charity worker.
suicide_-_ashley_rose_-_flickrThe warning comes as researchers, charities and former sports stars prepare to come together this September to host The University of Manchester’s suicide bereavement conference.
A report this week was grim reading for those involved in mental health care. The survey of GPs revealed that one in five had seen patients harmed as a result of “delays or a lack of support” from mental health services, while shortfalls had forced 82 per cent of doctors to act “outside of their competence”. While this news is shocking, it is just another example of the UK’s mental health care crisis.
Just last week, data obtained from freedom of information requests led to claims that the NHS treated mental health care as a “second-class service”. Indeed, thousands of mentally ill patients have been forced to travel “hundreds of miles” for treatment in recent years. Extreme cases have seen patients being forcibly sectioned so that they can receive care in overcrowded wards. Even medical students have resorted to asking for greater teaching on psychiatry, highlighting the derisory attention that mental health issues receive. Yet the state of mental health services is unsurprising considering that they receive only 13 per cent of the NHS budget, despite mental illness affecting around a quarter of the UK population.
Appeal to trace man attacked with concrete slab
Published 17/07/2014
Police are trying to trace a man who had a concrete slab smashed over his head in an early morning assault in the city centre.
Shortly after 4.35am on Wednesday 16 July 2014, Manchester City CCTV operators captured an incident on Bloom Street.
The Samaritans say they are seeing a huge increase in calls from people with mental illness – because patients have no-one to turn to at evenings and weekends.
The Manchester branch of the service, based on Oxford Road in the city centre has seen an increase of 3,500 calls over the past 12 months, dealing with 41,320 in total.
Many are existing mental health patients who say they have no-one else to talk to. It is not recorded by The Samaritans which health trusts each patient is being treated by.
Award-winning Vertigo Theatre Productions ( Mysterious Skin, M, OUT, Die, Mommie,Die, Rage etc) bring to the stageWatching Goldfish Suffocate, an exciting original new play by first time writer David Degiorgio about his own experiences of mental illness told in a unique and enlightening way.
Manchester Mental Health Charter Launch
Date & Time: Tuesday 16 September 2014, 12pm – 3pm Venue: Central Methodist Hall, Manchester, M1 1JQ
Join in the Alliance and learn about the Charter
Discuss what to do next
