Mental health of minors: a parliamentary report highlights the "urgency" for action

This is yet another warning about the crisis in child psychiatry, and it serves as a reminder that, while mental health has been declared a major national cause by 2025, it needs to be addressed for children and adolescents who are suffering.

An information report on the mental health of minors presented on Wednesday, July 9, by MPs Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé (Horizons, Moselle) and Anne Stambach-Terrenoir (La France insoumise, Haute-Garonne), and subsequently voted on by the National Assembly's delegation for children's rights, calls for greater transparency in care and a reduction in territorial inequalities in care.

After six months of work, around thirty expert hearings and several visits to specialist facilities, the co-rapporteurs noted a "growing gap" between the needs and the provision of care, and advocated the "urgency" of taking action. Some recent figures they gathered support their argument: according to the Directorate General for Healthcare Provision (DGOS), which was heard, 1.6 million children and adolescents suffer from a mental health disorder, out of a population of 14 million minors - a "prevalence in line with the average for OECD countries" , the report states.

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