The Jewish community’s main mental health support service is set to expand its services for children and young people in response to an increasing demand on its services.

The heads of Jami’s children and young person’s department, which comes under Jewish Care, said the five-year development project would combine professional mental health support with evidence-based talking therapies, and include a more streamlined referral process.

According to Jami, In the last three years, the likelihood of young people having a mental health condition has increased by 50 per cent, with one in five people now having a probable mental health disorder.

This comes at a time when, according to a report published in June by the charity Rethink Mental Illness, 1.2m people are on a waiting list for mental health treatment with the NHS.

Jami’s expansion project is being funded by the Dangoor family through their Exilarch Foundation and to honour this, the provision will be renamed The Dangoor Children and Young Person’s Service.

Louise Kermode, director of community mental health services at Jami, said: “We are immensely grateful to the Dangoor family for their special commitment towards our services.

"It is more important than ever for us to provide this specialist service to as many secondary school-aged children as possible in our community, filling a vital gap between the growing numbers of young people struggling with their mental health and the lack of mental health services currently available to them.

She said that this expansion would  mark “a critical milestone in our mission to provide accessible, professional mental health services, and we are excited to witness the positive impact it will have on the lives of young people across the community.”

The current dedicated multi-skilled team for the children and young person’s service comprises social workers, mental health practitioners and mental health support workers, offering ongoing tailored one-to-one support geared specifically to young people aged 11 to 18.

This runs as a referrals service for children and young people in the community, as well as providing vital support at JCoSS since 2022, and at JFS since April 2023.

Amy,13, is currently having fortnightly one-to-one support to help her find way of managing her anxiety, using breathing exercises, distraction techniques and by establishing a better bedtime routine. Amy said the sessions had made a noticeable difference to how she felt. “I am more confident and have more trust in people now,” she says. “The support from Jami really means a lot.”

For more information, click here or go to jamiuk.org/dangoor-cyp

Jami: 020 8458 2223.