A CONFERENCE is highlighting growing concerns over mental health issues in North-East schools.

Natasha Devon, who was outspoken during her brief period as the Government’s first mental health champion, is guest speaker at the conference for primary and secondary schools in Newcastle today (Tuesday, June 21).

The event, Mental Health Issues Amongst School Children in the North-East, is an all-day event coordinated by the Prince Bishops Teaching School Alliance, led by Benedict Biscop Church of England Academy, Sunderland and Whitburn Church of England Academy, South Tyneside.

Being held at St James’ Park, it will highlight rising levels of mental health issues amongst pupils in the region.

Also speaking are Mick Atkinson, vice-chair of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition and head of commissioning at Place2Be and Simon Marshall, director of education services, Sunderland City Council.

According to the charity Young Minds, three children in every classroom have a diagnosed mental illness and one in ten will develop an eating disorder before their 25th birthday.

Hospital admissions from self-harm and eating disorders have doubled in the past three years, and in some parts of the country rates of childhood depression, anxiety, self-harm and eating disorders are up by 600 per cent.

Alan Hardie, Principal of Whitburn Academy, said: “It is quite often thought that mental health wellbeing was something that only needed to be monitored when pupils were in secondary schools.

“It has become more apparent that as a result of the growing pressures of modern life, that those in primary school can be just as vulnerable.

“This is a new phenomena and it is therefore very important to build emotional resilience into children at a very young age so that they can cope with and manage the pressures that come with the teenage years.”