The NSPCC has once again raised the important issue of the
shortfall in mental health services for children who have been sexually abused.
A survey of more than 1,000 professionals in the UK, (social workers, doctors,
psychologists, teachers etc.) found that nearly all believed that there was not
enough help. And nearly 80% believed the situation was getting worse, with many
children having to wait for more than five months to get any help.
The NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless is absolutely right
to say that this is a situation that "shames the nation". It is a
situation that has just gone on and on, without any kind of satisfactory
progress. In this blog in 2009 (six years ago) I welcomed research on this
topic from the NSPCC and the University of Edinburgh and pointed out that
practitioners had been aware for years before of the large gaps in these types
of services.
It seems nothing changes. British governments of various
political complexions seem incapable of grabbing hold of this issue. It appears
they just stand-by while children and young people suffer.
I believe that this type of chronic penny-pinching is a
false economy, because children and young people who fail to get the
therapeutic services they require can develop life-long problems ranging from
anxiety and depression to post traumatic stress disorder and psychotic
illnesses. Studies by Prevent Child Abuse
America have estimated that the daily
cost of long term mental illness resulting from maltreatment during childhood
was nearly $13 million in the USA in 2001.
As I said in 2009: “A humane child protection system must
also deal promptly with the consequences of the abuse and do all that can be
done to mitigate them. Spending adequate sums of money on therapeutic services
for maltreated children is not only the right thing to do; it is also
financially prudent if it reduces the need to continue providing mental health
care for adult survivors of abuse.”
Sadly that needs saying as much today as it did then.
