Chamber and committees

Self-directed Support (SDS) is Scotland’s mainstream approach to social care, applying to both children and adults and enshrined in law through The Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013. This approach to social care has been chosen to ensure individuals are empowered to be equal partners in their care and support decisions and to participate in social and economic life. It is, however, focused on social care and support, rather than access to health services. As such, the Scottish Government does not currently have plans to develop a self-directed support scheme for young people to access mental health services.

However, the Scottish Government continues to invest heavily to ensure a range of mental health support is available to children and young people, in line with their needs.

Our work with children and young people’s organisations - monitoring surveys, research and referral rates – helps Scottish Government and our partners to incorporate the lived experience and views of children and young people into our policy and service design processes; as we seek to ensure that the right help and support is available.

We continue to invest in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) which support children and young people in need of specialist mental health support, and have invested an additional £40 million in CAMHS services this year.

We have also provided £15 million of additional funding to local authorities to deliver locally based mental health and wellbeing support for 5-24 year olds in their communities. This includes funding new and enhanced community mental health and wellbeing services for 5-24 year olds with a focus on prevention, early intervention and the treatment of distress.

In addition we continue to prioritise support for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing in schools, including developing and delivering new mental health training and learning resources, and £16 million in funding to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services.

Furthermore, we continue to invest in a range of other measures to support children and young people’s mental wellbeing. This includes providing enhanced digital resources on mental health and wellbeing available via Young Scot’s website and expansion of the Distress Brief Intervention programme to under 16s.