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Call for urgent action on child mental health

Disadvantaged children are set to become a new generation of mentally ill adults that will swamp Australia’s health system unless urgent action is taken, according to one of Australia’s leading mental health specialists.

Opening an international conference on infant, child and adolescent mental health in Melbourne, Professor Graham Martin said about 14 per cent of adolescents and children had mental health problems.

“The window for mental health in young people is early – perhaps nought to sevenyears old. We are breeding young people who will not have the necessary skills and knowledge to manage major stressors when they reach adult life.

“This next generation will drown mental health services. We urgently need to tackle this discrimination in early childhood.”

Professor Martin, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Queensland, said: “Every child should have a good place to live, a home of quality relationships, they should be loved, fed and have connections to groups they belong to. Australia is a rich country, yet we are failing so many of our children.”

Queensland and Tasmania had the greatest proportion of disadvantaged children, according to research just published, Professor Martin said. “Queensland has 20 per cent of the country’s children, but 48 per cent of the country’s disadvantaged children.” Those living in Aboriginal communities were especially affected, he said.

Clinical psychologist Philip Robinson said mental health for infants, children and
adolescents received less attention than it deserved. “About 7 per cent of the mental health dollar services about 30 per cent of the population.” Despite improvements in government spending “the proportion that goes to children is simply not adequate”.

Mr Robinson, chairman of the Australian Infant, Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health Association, said adult remedies did not work in children. “Children are not cut-down versions of adults. Often the solutions are quite different.”

The 17^th world congress of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions runs until Thursday. It has more than 800 delegates from 45 countries and highlights leading clinical and research advances in infant, child and adolescent mental health. Topics include ADHD, children’s eating disorders, how terrorism affects children, child soldiers, bullying, adoption and drugs and alcohol. It is held every four years and was last in Melbourne in 1978.

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Media: for more information please contact Niall Byrne, Science in Public, niall@scienceinpublic.com.au, ph +61 (3) 9398 1416.