COVID 19 effects on Mental Health and Wellbeing: children and young people in Wrexham and Flintshire

Introduction

Thank you for finding the time to complete this consultation, your answers are important to us, they are confidential and will inform the work of Wrexham and Flintshire’s Public Service Boards.

Public Service Boards are a partnership of organisations that help provide public services.  They include the Council, the Health Board, the Fire and Rescue Service, Natural Resources Wales, the Police, The National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Company, Public Health Wales, Coleg Cambria, A.V.O.W, and Welsh Government. 

This consultations aim is to find out how the Covid Pandemic has affected young people over this past year and what support is needed.  Contact information on how to get further support on any of the issues mentioned are available at the end of the consultation.  

Your voice matters. Tell us what you think.

Young people across Wrexham and Flintshire have expressed concerns about the toll on their mental health, education, employment, and income during coronavirus restrictions. The Coronavirus pandemic has negatively affected social relationship for some young people with their friends and families. Young people feel the pandemic has affected their mental health greatly. This joint consultation indicates a general worsening for some young people’s mental health and wellbeing especially anxiety, loneliness and depression.depression. Bereavement and traumatic experiences have been mentioned, with young people experiencing feelings of isolation, boredom and uncertainty.  A couple of young people mentioning feeling suicidal and a lack of control has been a huge issue for many young people. Some have had concerns over whether their friendships would recover and a lot of young people are worried about the loss of education or their prospects of finding work and fears about the future. Members of young people’s family have lost their jobs or been furloughed and this has created long-term economic and social consequences for them all.   Young people are worried about a third wave of the pandemic or future lockdowns having an effect on their education, grades, always having to play catch-up with their education and businesses and organisations shutting down. 91 young people feel it will affect their future because of their education, mounting pressure relating to school along with a lot of anxiety around taking exams and what will happen with their course work, GCSEs and A-Levels.

Young people are worried about how are they going to catch up on missed work and what impact will it have on their grades. Young people attending university have concerns about finances and what lies ahead for their future, jobs and careers and not being able to achieve their dreams or goals. It’s important to point out that throughout the last 12 months, education, teachers and school staff have gone above and beyond to keep schools open for young people of key workers and deliver online teaching for young people. There are worries that the third wave could be more than covid but actually in respect of mental health as young people describe their mental health getting as worsening and with increased levels of anxiety. Due to services already being oversubscribed and waiting lists becoming longer, the challenge will be how to ensure young people are protected from a further decline in their health. 

The results from these findings are being used to inform the recovery and future work of Wrexham and Flintshire’s Public Service Board. They will be shared with organisations across Wrexham and Flintshire to support their recovery and work with Young People. If there is a need the consultation will be run again in 2022.