One in five kids suffering with mental health issues after lockdown — as number nearly doubles in past 20 years
LOCKDOWN has left one in five kids with mental health issues — almost double the number 20 years ago.
A report warns as many as 2.3million could have a mental disorder by 2030.
The Centre for Social Justice study comes 20 years after its landmark Broken Britain survey kickstarted reforms that led to Universal Credit.
Back then, just one in nine children were assessed as having a clinically recognisable mental health problem.
The new report found 13.4million people lead lives hit by low wages, poor housing, chronic ill-health and crime.
It also found that calls to domestic abuse lines increased 700 per cent in lockdown and school absences rose by 134 per cent.
READ MORE IN HEALTH
The report said: “There is a growing gap between those who can get by and those stuck at the bottom.”
It added: "There are over 2.6 million people economically inactive because of long term sickness, an increase of nearly 500,000 since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Over half of those signed off (53%) reported depression, bad nerves or anxiety.
“The most disadvantaged view mental ill health as the biggest factor holding them back, which only comes fifth for the general public.”
Most read in Health
“Before the Covid-19 pandemic deaths from alcohol poisoning, which had been dropping, have now risen 15.4%.”
The REAL question on Covid
By Sir Iain Duncan-Smith, Founder, Centre for Social Justice
FROM interminable week to interminable week, a year and a half after the Covid inquiry was set up, it is still raking over the entrails of the Covid crisis and examining WhatsApp messages.
By contrast, the Centre for Social Justice is publishing an in-depth analysis of life in the most disadvantaged communities today.
It paints a difficult picture of the poor quality of life in the most disadvantaged communities.
The Covid inquiry seems to have become a lawyer fest, perfect for 24-hour television but to most people beyond the Westminster bubble, as interesting as watching paint dry.
Why hasn’t this inquiry looked at whether continuous blanket lockdowns were necessary? Difficult as things were before Covid, there is no question but that the nature of the lockdowns made it a whole lot worse.
Perhaps the best example of that is what happened to children, the least likely to have been affected by the virus yet shut out of schools.