Debate contribution: Children’s Mental Health: Cross-departmental Cooperation
Debate contribution by Mrs Diane Dodds on .
- MLA
- Mrs Diane Dodds
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 30 September 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Opposition Business
- Heading
- Children’s Mental Health: Cross-departmental Cooperation
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4564145
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I welcome the Opposition's focus on mental health today. It has been useful, and the tone has been right. I hope that some of those involved in this sphere will take heart from the fact that we have spent the day talking about this important issue. The motion refers to mental health and children and young people's mental health. I will quote the statistic that I quoted earlier: in the Northern Ireland life and times survey 2023, only 50% — only half — of those aged 18 to 24 who were surveyed reported positively about their mental health. That is a very sad statistic about young people in Northern Ireland. Many of those young people are found to have profound levels of anxiety. That is a difficult issue as well. We are focused here on the Children's Services Co-operation Act (Northern Ireland) 2015. Since I came to the Assembly I have heard over and over again about collaboration and no working in silos. Folks, the honest answer is that people out there do not really care about any of that: they want action and their problems solved. That is the most important thing that we can focus on today. We should look at cooperation between Education, Economy, Health and Communities to resolve the issue of a legal entitlement to education for young people with special needs up to the age of 25 in order to bring us in line with the rest of the United Kingdom. We should work with the voluntary and community sector to ensure that there are pathways for those young people. In closing, I want to focus on arm's-length bodies and trusts because they cannot be absolved from this. We all watched the programme last week where mothers shared their really difficult journeys with young people in their homes and the lack of respite services. Lo and behold, in my office on Friday, we had another mother sitting in front of me. She said that she moved five minutes down the road, out of her health trust area, into another health and care trust that had no services. The first thing that happened was that her original trust pulled her respite services immediately. We have families at breaking point in Northern Ireland, and it is just not good enough for trusts to offer such a widely unequal variety of services for our children and young people.
I would like to see the focus put on the trusts as well as Departments.
415 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.04 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.94).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- Subject area: Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.04 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.94 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.04 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.99 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.01 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:12 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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