Petition raised to Introduce personal safety & criminal action awareness training in schools in UK.

[Gerry Seymour]

The research is Legitimate and was carried out via feedback forms that where completed in a number of secondary schools and Girl Guides groups we have worked and are not over reaching.

That response doesn't address the questions I posted. For instance, you referred to 20% of respondents being "severely depressed". That's a clinical term, and I find it difficult to believe that can be diagnosed by a survey, much less the cause being discovered that way.

Claims like that, when read by someone who understands the topics and terms, seem over-reaching. They may not be, but you should expect challenges like that and be ready to defend them with an explanation of how that was determined. Telling people it's legitimate is not sufficient.

 

[gsdouk1]

The program began at first by looking into why girls where not taking part in sport. We looked at previous mental health figures from 2013 which started the project.

MENTAL HEALTH STATISTICS
In this section, you will find key statistics about children and young people's mental health and wellbeing.

• 1 in 10 children and young people aged 5 - 16 suffer from a diagnosable mental health disorder - that is around three children in every class (1).
• Between 1 in every 12 and 1 in 15 children and young people deliberately self-harm (2).
• There has been a big increase in the number of young people being admitted to hospital because of self harm. Over the last ten years this figure has increased by 68% (3).
• More than half of all adults with mental health problems were diagnosed in childhood. Less than half were treated appropriately at the time (4).
• Nearly 80,000 children and young people suffer from severe depression (5).
• Over 8,000 children aged under 10 years old suffer from severe depression (6).
• 72% of children in care have behavioural or emotional problems - these are some of the most vulnerable people in our society (7).
• 95% of imprisoned young offenders have a mental health disorder. Many of them are struggling with more than one disorder (8).
• The number of young people aged 15-16 with depression nearly doubled between the 1980s and the 2000s (9).
• The proportion of young people aged 15-16 with a conduct disorder more than doubled between 1974 and 1999 (10)

There is Key Data on Adolescence 2013 from the Association for Young People's Health available here which has a section, Chapter 6, dedicated to Mental Health.

MORE DETAILED STATISTICS
A more detailed analysis of the figures on depression, conduct disorders and anxiety in children are listed below.

MENTAL DISORDERS
The figures below are based on the finding of the latest ONS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey which was published in 2004 (11).

Any figures on the number of children with these disorders are estimates based on the prevalence rates found in this study and demographic data from the 2001 census.

• 9.6% or nearly 850,000 children and young people aged between 5-16 years have a mental disorder
• 7.7% or nearly 340,000 children aged 5-10 years have a mental disorder
• 11.5% or about 510,000 young people aged between 11-16 years have a mental disorder

ANXIETY

• 3.3% or about 290,000 children and young people have an anxiety disorder
• 2.2% or about 96,000 children have an anxiety disorder
• 4.4% or about 195,000 young people have an anxiety disorder

DEPRESSION

• 0.9% or nearly 80,000 children and young people are seriously depressed
• 0.2% or about 8,700 aged 5-10 year-olds are seriously depressed.
• 1.4% or about 62,000 aged 11-16 year-olds are seriously depressed.

CONDUCT DISORDERS

• 5.8% or just over 510,000 children and young people have a conduct disorder
• 4.9% or nearly 215,000 children have a conduct disorder
• 6.6% or just over 290,000 young people have a conduct disorder

HYPERKINETIC DISORDER (SEVERE ADHD)

• 1.5% or just over 132,000 children and young people have severe ADHD
• 1.6% or about 70,000 children have severe ADHD
• 1.4% or about 62,000 young people have severe ADHD

SOURCES
1 Green, H., McGinnity, A., Meltzer, H., et al. (2005). Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain 2004. London: Palgrave.

2 Mental Health Foundation (2006). Truth hurts: report of the National Inquiry into self-harm among young people. London: Mental Health Foundation

3 YoungMinds (2011) 100,000 children and young people could be hospitalised due to self-harm by 2020 warns YoungMinds. London: YoungMinds.

4 Kim-Cohen, J., Caspi, A., Moffitt, TE., et al (2003): Prior juvenile diagnoses in adults with mental disorder. Archives of general psychiatry, Vol 60, pp.709-717.

5 Green, H., McGinnity, A., Meltzer, H., et al. (2005). Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain 2004. London: Palgrave.

6 Green, H., McGinnity, A., Meltzer, H., et al. (2005). Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain 2004. London: Palgrave.

7 Sempik, J. et al. (2008) Emotional and behavioural difficulties of children and young people at entry into care. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 13 (2), pp. 221-233.

8 Office for National Statistics (1997): Psychiatric morbidity among young offenders in England and Wales. London: Office for National Statistics.

9 Nuffield Foundation (2013) Social trends and mental health: introducing the main findings. London: Nuffield Foundation.

10 Collishaw, S. et al. (2004) Time trends in adolescent mental health. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45:8, pp 1350–1362.

11 Green, H., McGinnity, A., Meltzer, H., et al. (2005). Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain 2004. London: Palgrave.

 

[gsdouk1]

if you dont believe there is a problem please explain

Boy dubbed 'most hated person in school' by bullies stepped in front of train

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boy-12-attacked-gang-

Oxford teen abducted and sexually assaulted while walking to school | Daily Mail Online

Police hunt man who attacked girl on her way to school in Hackney

Search continues for man who attacked girl near school bus stop in Bradenton

Trust me I can go on and on and on the news is full of these stories.

 

[Tez3]

I teach Sports, Self defence and Motor Mechanics in Sixth form college and I have dyslexia, so wouldnt make a great English teacher. So I see you point and to be fair I see you other Point. However this is a genuine cause hence the defense of It, and my passion. I have feel this is not about a pissing contest but its about a real problem. So people can support it or they dont that should be there choice. I do feel though is there is some knowledgeable people on hear they should try to do something about the problem and not kick people who are genuine and try.

Trust me if it were a pissing contest you'd win, I can't piss round corners.
I understand about the dyslexia but if you want to appeal to the powers that be with a petition you need to have a well written explanation. I know that sounds harsh but I'm afraid passion doesn't come through the internet the way it would in person. Your research sounded vague and confused, it needs to be much more specific.

I will explain because I'm not sure that Americans have the same type of petition.
This petition is on a government site and if it gets 10,000 signatures it will get a response from the government, if it gets 100,000 it will be considered for debate in the House of Commons. The latter is what this petition needs because just a response from the government with platitudes is no good.

Hence the need for a tightly worded and accurate survey to get those signatures. The response you got here is probably typical of what you can expect. You say things like 'crime figures' are going up, but that is vague at a time when many crime figures are not going up, there's plenty of statistics that say so. As I said you come over as a business that works in schools, you say not but if that's the case you need to change your approach. and explain who the person presenting the petition is because the name is linked to business as I said, it's not a usual name that I would expect there to be more of who live in the same city.

Again though the people on here are unlikely to be able to help due to not being in the UK, there's only a couple of us and I for one am already involved in anti bullying schemes with young people.

 

[gsdouk1]

Trust me if it were a pissing contest you'd win, I can't piss round corners.
I understand about the dyslexia but if you want to appeal to the powers that be with a petition you need to have a well written explanation. I know that sounds harsh but I'm afraid passion doesn't come through the internet the way it would in person. Your research sounded vague and confused, it needs to be much more specific.

I will explain because I'm not sure that Americans have the same type of petition.
This petition is on a government site and if it gets 10,000 signatures it will get a response from the government, if it gets 100,000 it will be considered for debate in the House of Commons. The latter is what this petition needs because just a response from the government with platitudes is no good.

Hence the need for a tightly worded and accurate survey to get those signatures. The response you got here is probably typical of what you can expect. You say things like 'crime figures' are going up, but that is vague at a time when many crime figures are not going up, there's plenty of statistics that say so. As I said you come over as a business that works in schools, you say not but if that's the case you need to change your approach. and explain who the person presenting the petition is because the name is linked to business as I said, it's not a usual name that I would expect there to be more of who live in the same city.

Again though the people on here are unlikely to be able to help due to not being in the UK, there's only a couple of us and I for one am already involved in anti bullying schemes with young people.

Thanks Tez iam just trying to get the word out and not usually one who writes on forums

 

[Tez3]

if you dont believe there is a problem please explain

Boy dubbed 'most hated person in school' by bullies stepped in front of train

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boy-12-attacked-gang-

Oxford teen abducted and sexually assaulted while walking to school | Daily Mail Online

Police hunt man who attacked girl on her way to school in Hackney

Search continues for man who attacked girl near school bus stop in Bradenton

Trust me I can go on and on and on the news is full of these stories.

Much better, thank you but word of warning, quoting tabloids doesn't count especially the Daily Mail. Your first citations were very good, the gutter press not so much. The news is full of stories because it's the news, it also presents a false picture and is often inaccurate so stick to things like the various police statistics, court records, Home Office data etc. You need more 'scientific' data not news reports. Trust me I've been working at this stuff for years. People read newspaper reports through their political views so keep the data from reasonably neutral sources.

 

[Tez3]

Thanks Tez iam just trying to get the word out and not usually one who writes on forums

No worries, stick around, you'll get used to us and there's a lot of useful info on here as well as some unique characters. I'm sure there's a lot you can contribute to the various sections.
What's your martial arts?

 

[Tez3]

This is a petition going on at the moment, it has received a reply already from the government. If you look at the reply you will see how they think, with statistics, citations etc all in a very professional manner. This is what you are up against, so you must have a 'bullet proof' petition.
Petition: No more school penalty fines and bring back the 10 day authorised absence

 

[KangTsai]

Well you seem to have depressed kids on the line here by what you're saying. Everyone else is just making sure you guys are doing it right.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

0.9% or nearly 80,000 children and young people are seriously depressed

And yet, your original post claims that 20% of respondents say they are seriously depressed because of threats. Even if we assume that is the only cause of depression for children in the survey, the number is off by an order of magnitude.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

if you dont believe there is a problem please explain

Boy dubbed 'most hated person in school' by bullies stepped in front of train

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boy-12-attacked-gang-

Oxford teen abducted and sexually assaulted while walking to school | Daily Mail Online

Police hunt man who attacked girl on her way to school in Hackney

Search continues for man who attacked girl near school bus stop in Bradenton

Trust me I can go on and on and on the news is full of these stories.

Nobody said there wasn't a problem. I was pointing out a problem in the conclusions drawn from your survey. Rather than throwing other research at me, try showing where you got your numbers so we can help you present the case.

 

[gsdouk1]

I see thank you guys more watertight conclusions, a better presented case less defensive emotions seems to be what is needed plus a singular aim. I will look at re writing a stronger petition. When the Dust settles thanks for the advice.