Exploring Mental Health and Inequality through the CEYRIS Data
Public Health Scotland
The national agency for improving and protecting the health and wellbeing of the people of Scotland.
Author: David Mackay, Head of Policy, Projects and Participation, Children in Scotland
The fourth and final round of the CEYRIS survey presents anyone working in children and young people’s policy with some interesting and challenging reading. Our policy calls at Children in Scotland are always evidence based so wide-ranging national data sets, like those included in the CEYRIS reports, are very helpful in informing our policy development work and helping us to identify the implementation gaps.
The new CEYRIS reports present a fascinating snapshot of how children and families are getting on as we navigate this turbulent post-pandemic world. Although there are some positives, the data backs up many of the things we are hearing through the projects we deliver and from our members – inequalities in Scottish society are continuing to grow, and this is having a range of negative impacts on families.
For me, one of the key standouts from the research was the mental health and wellbeing information reported. We know the pandemic and the current cost-of-living crisis has had a significant impact on the mental health of both children and adults and this certainly comes through in the data.
Children’s mental health and wellbeing
At Children in Scotland, we regularly hear from children and young people that mental health is a key concern for them. They have told us about the need for better education around mental health and for low-level mental health and wellbeing support to be available to them early on. They have also highlighted the barriers to seeking help that can exist for children and young people. Children and young people have told us:
“In my experiences mental health problems are only shared, reluctantly, after a major issue has arisen. There are less conversations about general mental wellbeing."
"Despite progress, there is still stigma surrounding mental health issues.”
They also continue to identify the importance of relationships in supporting positive mental health. This includes relationships with their peers, relationships with family members and relationships with professionals (including education staff, health professionals and youth workers).
During the pandemic, Children in Scotland saw and heard about the wide range of negative mental health impacts for children and young people. And we know that for certain groups, including children with additional support needs, children from minority ethnic families, care-experienced young people and children and young people impacted by poverty, the mental health impacts were even more strongly felt. This was reflected in a recent Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry evidence session that Children in Scotland hosted for our members.
In the CEYRIS survey, 35% of parents and carers reported mental health concerns about their child. This is a significant proportion of children, but the data becomes more alarming when we examine it through an income lens. When taking economic circumstances into consideration, nearly half (48%) of parents/carers from low-income families reported a concern about their child’s mental health.
The research also uses Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire scores to assess concerns about children’s behaviour and emotions. This data also identifies significant differences in scores between the income groups, with the proportion of children from low-income households scoring a ‘very high’ difficulties score three times higher in comparison to better off households (38% as opposed to 12%).
Support for parents and carers and access to services
Continuing to explore the data through an income-related perspective, another key finding that jumped out was the was the disparity around mental health and wellbeing scores for parents and carers. More than double the proportion of parents and carers from low-income households reported low mental wellbeing compared to those from high-income families (43% as opposed to 20%).
The data also shows that those households with lower incomes were also more likely to have concerns about their lack of support network. Nearly a third (30%) of low-income households raised this as an issue whereas only 19% of families from high-income families said they had a lack of support. Parents and carers from lower-income households also reported more challenges accessing GPs, Health Visitors, Dentists and Family Support Workers.
We regularly hear about the impact of poverty and its connection to poor parental mental health through our work. For example, Children in Scotland’s Open Kindergarten project worked with parents and carers who were struggling to cope with poverty and poor mental health, and who were feeling isolated and alone with no real support network.
Ensuring that the right community-focused, relationship-based supports and services are in place for families can help to overcome some of these challenges.
As one parent attending the Open Kindergarten project told us,
“At the moment I still struggle with depression, but to have this is a lifeline. It gets me out of the house. These four walls keep closing me in.”
Prevention is the key
The CEYRIS research helps to reinforce the need to shift to more preventative approaches but, nearly 15 years on from the publication of the Christie Commission report which advocated for this, Scotland is still struggling with how to make this shift.
We know that poverty and deprivation significantly impacts children’s opportunities to access their rights, affecting their ability to grow, flourish and enjoy good physical and mental health. This data highlights how much work we still have to do to tackle child poverty and its negative impacts if we are to truly make improvements in children’s and parents’ mental health and deliver on Scottish Government’s recently refreshed Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.
While the CEYRIS data has its limitations, it is one of the many pieces of evidence that can help us to understand the challenges we face and develop better policies and interventions to support children and families.