COUNCILS and services need to "get a grip" of young people's mental health in the wake of the pandemic, a watchdog was told.
The issue was raised in a council meeting as a mental health partnership told of plans to "refresh" its activities.
Mike Brierley, chair of the County Durham Mental Health Strategic Partnership, said: "The need to have some dedicated focus on children's mental health and well-being is really important."
He said they had "a workstream that is purely focused on mental health and emotional wellbeing for children and young people".
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He was speaking at Durham County Council's health and wellbeing board meeting this week.
Councillor Ted Henderson, cabinet member for children and young people's services, said: "Covid has had a big impact on things.
"We really need to get to grips with children and young people's mental health.
"CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) is often seen as the only place young people can access for mental health needs.
"However there are lots of other services they can contact in the community."
He asked how this was shared with young people, parents, schools and residents.
Mr Brierley replied CAHMS was historically the "go-to place" for children's mental health.
However this provided a specialist service which not all children required and "we are moving away from that".
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"So there's focus on early intervention and prevention, working with schools in particular," he said.
"We've looked at mental health support teams in schools and funding new initiatives around that.
"We've got more investment in the voluntary sector to try and wrap that support around, not just the child but the family, carers and parents.
"Ultimately, children will need specialist support services and that needs to be there and we are looking at improving that."
He said one programme helped parents and children cope while they waited for access to specialist services.
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John Pearce, the council's director of children and young people's services, said: "It's really critical that we take that holistic view around mental health.
"I think sometimes we have too much of a focus on diagnosis and some of the clinical elements.
"That's absolutely right for some children and young people, but for many that much broader approach to how we support their emotional health and wellbeing is going to be really critical.
"It's a really significant challenge."
Mr Brierley told the committee of the partnership's wider work: "We've got a really good track record of working together as a system to support mental in County Durham and also Darlington.
"The partnership really draws together the golden thread between a lot of work that happens across a number of areas."
He told how the partnership also had a suicide prevention scheme, a "crisis care concordat" and work on dementia and resilient communities, linking with other agencies and services.
He said: "The value of having those partners come together to share information and work to overcome the issues that each face... is something that we don't want to lose.
"And we need to reinvigorate that because of the Covid impact that we've had.
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"The work that was done is valid still. Lots of other initiatives have popped up.
"We want to make sure that we're being as lean, as efficient as possible.
"What we're suggesting is we maintain the strategic partnership for mental health, recognising its value over the years and the good work that we've done and the progress we've made, but reflect and refresh how the intelligence is drawn from all parts of the system."
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