XLP
All-Hallows-On-The-Wall | 83 London Wall | London | EC2M 5ND
020 7256 6240 www.xlp.org.uk
Release date: Friday 5 th December 2014
PRESS RELEASE FROM XLP Urban Youth Charity
"There is a complete institutional bias against mental health within our NHS. With physical health there is a whole set of access standards that give people rights to access treatment, and there is nothing in mental
health. We have to achieve greater equality of rights between mental health and physical health." -
Norman Lamb MP
“Surely it can’t be right that see our young people’s lives devastated by mental health issues and yet only spend £40 million per year on mental health? When you compare this with spending figures like: £671million* on sexual health initiatives, £108 million on tackling obesity and £76million on increasing physical activity you quickly realise that mental health is not seen as equal to physical health in spite of the fact that it has a massive, often detrimental
effect on those affected. It’s time mental health becomes the priority is desperately needs to be” (Patrick Regan
OBE – CEO XLP)
*MIND 2014
Last night (Dec 4 th ) Norman Lamb MP – Department of Health Minister, Sarah Brennan –CEO Young
Minds UK and other leading experts and policy makers attended a key conference (co-hosted by urban youth charity XLP and the leading social policy think tank - Centre for Social Justice - CSJ), to challenge failures in the current youth mental health service.
Chaired by ITV’s Nina Hossain, the conference, titled: ‘Tackling Youth Mental Health’, explored measures to address failures in the existing battle against youth mental illness.
In light of some staggering statistics, Norman Lamb MP emphasised the need for early intervention:
1 in 12 young people self-harm
60% looked after children have mental health problems
Approx. 850,000 children and young people have clinically diagnosed mental illness
95% of imprisoned young people have a mental health disorder
Over 50% of adults with long term mental health problems were diagnosed before 14 years old
He later outlined the government’s plans to invest approx. £30 million in order to decrease the time those who are referred to mental health services will have to wait for support and care:
“We need to focus on stopping the deterioration in the first place, helping people at home and providing proper crisis support. For the first time we have set out waiting time standards for mental health including a standard which will ensure that by 2016, at least 50% of all ages referred from early intervention in psychosis services will start treatment within 2 weeks.

There is overwhelming evidence that if you intervene quickly after the first episode in psychosis you could stop the deterioration and you can give that person a chance of living a good life.” Norman Lamb MP
Keynote speaker at the event - CEO of Young Minds UK, Sarah Brennan strongly supported the MP’s sentiments:
“We need to intervene early. If we do get help, we need it early on. It isn’t any good later on. Everyone who works with young people need to understand what might be the issues that are in front of them…we’re pressuring our system and not giving good service to young people. They are often in crisis before they can get help.” (Sarah Brennan – CEO Young Minds UK)
But she went on to say that at present this need for early intervention is still theoretical with only “0.6% of the NHS budget (is) spent on children’s and young people’s mental health.”
XLP decided to host this conference to address the increasing needs of young people who desperately need help but can’t access it for many reasons:
“We in the voluntary sector need to have a more joined up approach and find out where we can collaborate and learn from one another. Real change comes from working at the grassroots, inspiring people to get involved in a vision of seeing the invisible, become visible – for those young people struggling with mental health issues, we must find a way to enable them to
get help before they get to a crisis point or it’s too late” - (Patrick Regan OBE – CEO XLP)
Throughout the evening other mental health experts shared their thoughts on the need for providing accessible, family friendly services to enable young people to get the help and care they need:
Dr. Charlie Howard of MAC UK outlined the need to take mental health services out into the community where young people can access those services more easily: “Mental health needs to be embedded across all that we do so we need to be embedding mental health across youth work, across employment, across housing, across education…We need to take mental health out of clinics and onto streets. If we’re expecting young people sitting in stairwells, benches, buses, doorsteps to come to services we are entirely missing the point. We need to go out and work with local agencies, not just as professionals but alongside community members and people these young people trust. In my experience it is organisations like
XLP who know precisely where these young people are. It is about joined up working, working as whole communities to go and
get that support to people that need it” (Dr Charlie Howard – MAC UK)
Clinical Nurse Specialist in CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health), Olu Oyerinde strongly agreed with this stating: “One of the biggest things is actually getting on the streets. Being able to engage with services is fundamental. With my role as a nurse, 50% is nursing and 50% is being able to engage a young person, parent or family member… Part of my
job is introducing myself as opposed to introducing mental health. Once you get passed that barrier the access takes off.”(Olu
Oyerinde –CAMHS – East London NHS Foundation Trust)
He went on to suggest that CAMHS needs a full re branding to help users engage: “CAMHS needs to be rebranded to
be effective and relevant in demystifying negative connotations” (Olu Oyerinde)
All contributors acknowledged the vital role that youth projects like XLP play in supporting young people who are failed by the current system:
“Young people who are failed most are the ones with very complex needs. Those are the ones where we don’t quite what to do. Some of those issues are social issues and don’t fit into a nice box. Those are the young people who often fall between the gaps between services. They depend very heavily on organisations like XLP to have someone who wants to listen to them and
help them navigate through.” (Sarah Brennan – CEO Young Minds UK)
“Commissioners need to think about services like XLP and MAC-UK that are already in existence and can continue to fund.
They are always funding new initiatives but we need to look at the things that are already happening which are engaging
young people and continue to fund rather than going for new initiatives…we need young people to feel they can self-refer”
(Olu Oyerinde – CAMHS)
The conference was an important stepping stone to bringing about a more joined up, cohesive approach to young people’s mental health services.

ENDS
For media inquiries or photos please contact:
Jude Trenier, Head of XLP Communications, jude.trenier@xlp.org.uk
Tel: 02072566240
Or 07841337974
Notes on XLP
In 1996, in response to a stabbing in a school playground, the school’s headmaster asked Patrick Regan, a local church based youth worker, to come into the school and work with their students and teachers to help with difficult behavioural issues. This was the beginning of XLP, a
Christian charity that has an emphasis on being faith-based, but not faith-biased.
Over the past 15 years XLP has grown from working in a single school to operating in over 60 schools and communities across Southwark,
Lewisham, Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Islington and Camden. Today, on a day-to-day basis, XLP has projects working with over
1800 young people 1-2-1 and in small groups each week and engages with over 12,000 each year.
CEO Patrick Regan’s passion is to see children and young people, from the most deprived and challenging backgrounds, succeed in life - helping them to avoid making wrong choices and to overcome the challenges they face - to realise their amazing potential. Patrick, who won the
Mayor of London Peace Award for Outstanding Contribution to Peace in the Community in 2010, is also on the advisory board of the Centre for
Social Justice. In 2012 Patrick received an OBE in the Jubilee Queens Birthday honours list. He is the author of three books including No Ceiling to Hope .