Everyone will have their own moment when they concluded that things were broken, but here’s mine. I was talking to the headteacher of an east London primary school who told me of a pupil who had attempted suicide three times. The head had sought urgent intervention from a range of services, but had had no luck. The services all said they were simply too stretched to help.
I can’t shake that story. I’m haunted by the notion of a child so young and in such distress that they wanted to take their own life. But I think too of the state of our country, where the safety net that should catch such a child is so frayed and torn it is no longer there. Because we all know it’s not just this one area – mental health provision for young people – that’s in a parlous state. The damage is everywhere.
