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February 2012
The Mental Health Of Looked After Children
Stigma continues to surround the mental health of looked after children and young people, new reaearch has highlighted. Carried out by YoungMinds, the report- entitled Improving the `mental Helath of Looked After Young People - revealed January saw more applications to take youngsters into care than any previous four-week period.
In addition, it was noted that 60 per cent of looked after young people have a mental health issue of one form or another.
YoungMinds said the findings show that services in contact with these individuals need to be more aware of their mental health needs.
It was found that a high number of young people have a negative perception of mental health services, while the majority feel their emotional needs are not understood.
Lucie Russell, Director of Campaigns and Policy at YoungMinds said: "Looked after chidren have come from a variety of traumatic backgrounds and experience many of the risk factors that lead to emntal health problems incuding neglect, violence and sexual abuse."