A PLEA has been made in the House of Commons for a dedicated service to be established in East Cleveland for children in care or suffering from mental illness.
Dr Ashok Kumar, the Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and east Cleveland, made the call in a Commons debate on social services provision for young people.
He said he was backing a call from Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council's social services department for a children's mental health team to be set up in the area.
Speaking after the debate, he said: "The case workloads for social workers and child psychologists is heavy and one problem is that much of the day-to-day contact work has to be carried out in Middlesbrough.
"I feel that this is both culturally, geographically and socially remote from east Cleveland. I will be pressing the case to children's minister Jacqui Smith again in the future.
"Put simply, a lot of good work is being done to see that children in care get the best start in life that is possible, and I would like to see more done in this respect locally."
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