Jenny Young MSP: Summer sessions help highlight support needed by our communities

I have spent the summer meeting with individuals, charities, businesses and other organisations from across the Central Scotland and Lothians West region to find out what issues are most important to our area, so that as one of your MSPs I can push for changes that are needed.

I learned three key lessons from my tour of the region that will be informing the work I do in parliament in the coming months.

Firstly, that our third sector needs more support to continue the fantastic work it does across the country.

In Falkirk alone I had the pleasure of being welcomed by several fantastic charities to learn more about the important services they provide in the local community.

During my visit to Home Start Falkirk – who have been operating in the area for the last 26 years – I heard about the range of ways they help parents and young children to have a better family life, through groups, courses and one-to-one support.

I also visited the Forth Valley Sensory Centre that has been supporting people with sight or hearing loss to live independently for the last 20 years. The range of services hosted and provided by the charity really was astounding.

The challenge that many of these charities face is the inability to plan for the long term because they do not have multi-year funding. Instead, each year is about delivering whatever services they can afford to without any guarantee of being able to do the same in the following year.

I am therefore determined to raise the issue of multi-year funding for our third sector with the Scottish Government and push for a better deal for these brilliant charities in the region.

Secondly, I saw that young people need more opportunities as they leave school and look to their future.

While many young people know that the next step they’ll be taking after school will be college or university, the reality is that there are many young people who just don’t know what to do or where to turn.

So it was a pleasure to meet Go! Youth Trust at their fantastic premises in the town centre and hear directly from the young people who have benefited from the organisation’s huge range of initiatives.

I commend Go! Youth Trust for providing a great social hub for young people and for supporting them to figure out their strengths, their interests and equip them with life skills to help them succeed as they go onto their next stages.

Thirdly, it is clear that CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) and Paediatric Neurodevelopmental Services in Forth Valley are an urgent priority for improvement.

Over the summer, several concerning findings came to light about mental health support in the Forth Valley area. From unacceptably long waits for patients to be assessed or diagnosed, to the revelation that the majority of CAMHS vacancies were unfilled, it is abundantly clear that services are struggling to cope with rising demand.

I have met with the Royal College of Psychiatrists to discuss these issues in more detail, and will be seeking further opportunities to raise them with the Scottish Government and NHS Forth Valley.

Finally, I was in Morrisons Falkirk for a surgery recently and will be continuing my surgery schedule across the region in the coming weeks – do keep an eye on my social media for details or email me at [email protected] if there is anything I can do to help you and your family.