Social workers are warning of a rise in the number of children with mental health problems since the start of the pandemic, with official figures recording a 25% increase as successive lockdowns and school closures take a toll.
Councils said they have “grave concerns” over the growing demand for help, with nearly 1,500 children a week presenting with mental health problems – an increase that could cost councils an extra £600m a year.
There were 77,390 children who had been assessed as having a mental health need by councils on 31 March 2021, an increase of 25% on the 61,830 seen two years earlier, according to statistics from the Department for Education.
The pandemic has triggered increased pressure from gangs, through county line drug dealing networks, as well as sexual harassment, social workers reported. The most common problems remained the impact of a parent being subject to domestic violence and a parent’s poor mental health.
The increase may be an undercount as there has also been a 31% slump in the number of referrals from schools – 36,000 fewer cases – reflective of the restrictions on school attendance in place for parts of the year to April 2021.
“Hundreds of children every week are seen by social workers because they need help with their mental health and we expect these numbers to grow as the full impact of the pandemic is felt,” said Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board. “This reinforces the importance of fully funding the whole system of children’s mental health support, including councils and the NHS, to make sure that children get the help they need, when they need it. That includes early help to prevent children reaching crisis point.”
A pastoral care officer in a school in the south-west told the Guardian that on Thursday there were no social workers to whom to refer urgent cases. They said that more year 11 students than ever before, including the typically most successful, are asking for help with anxiety and stress triggered by exams.
“These children were 14 when home schooling started,” they said. “At that age a lot of them weren’t capable of learning remotely effectively. Students are suffering, breaking down, fearing they’re not going to achieve in subjects they want to do well in. Others have simply switched off.”
Rebekah Pierre, professional officer with the British Association of Social Workers, said an increase in domestic abuse during lockdowns was made worse for children by the lack of a safety net provided by schools. She said social workers had seen more referrals when lockdowns or school holidays ended. Online child sexual exploitation has “never been worse” and may have resulted in increases in self-harm.
“Children are feeling anxious and there is almost a grief about what they have lost through Covid,” she said.
Separate NHS figures showed that in 2021, one in six children in England had a probable mental disorder, up from one in nine in 2017, with girls aged between 11 and 16 more likely to have experienced a decline in mental health than boys the same age. The proportion of 11- to 16-year-olds with eating problems almost doubled from 2017 to 2021.
Thirteen per cent of 11- to 16-year-olds and 24% of 17- to 23-year-olds felt their lives had been made “much worse” by coronavirus restrictions.
The most common factors recorded by social workers handling cases of children in need were concerns a parent was subject to domestic violence, the parent’s mental health, emotional abuse, neglect, concerns about the mental health of the child, drug use by parents and domestic violence against the child.
