Rural communities mental health

The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Rural Mental Health Report was published last year. The report covers many of the themes also discussed last year at the DAG Spring Seminar 2023 on Rural Deprivation, the recording is still available via the DAG website Event page.

Dan Morrow, Chief Executive of Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust has written a recent article in Schools Week picking up the main themes. The report states that . “While experience of nature and the countryside is consistently identified as potentially beneficial for people’s mental health,” it does go on to say that, “our evidence is equally clear that the isolation inherent in rural living poses a significant challenge to the mental health of those who reside and work in these areas.”

The report recommends that DEFRA and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities set out a timeline and process by which to review and revise the Index of Multiple Deprivation which currently better reflects urban communities with the aim of more accurately capturing rural deprivation.

The report believes that far too much avoidable demand ends up at the door of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in rural areas because of a fundamental lack of social infrastructure and youth services. Government departments must therefore consult on how to relieve this pressure by accelerating the expansion of preventative mental health support for children and young people by prioritising the roll-out of Mental Health Support Teams to cover 100% of schools and colleges in rural areas by 2026/27; and commit to establish and fund “Early Support Hubs” for children’s mental health’ in rural areas by 2024/25.

The report believes that, while the available evidence does not reveal a mental health crisis in rural England, there are more than enough glaring gaps, and obvious red flags, to warrant urgent and meaningful action, aiming to achieve a degree of preventative impact rather having to wait for an inevitable crisis to create a political imperative and free the necessary resources.