The government has been urged to intervene to tackle the dramatic rise in the number of very young children – some aged just three - who are self-harming. Teachers and mental health workers have told ITV News they are regularly seeing children punch and scratch themselves, bang their heads against walls and aggressively pull out their own hair. They say it is an untold story and one that requires critical attention, with a 27% jump in hospital admissions for self-harm by children aged three to nine in England in just five years. “We're not mental health specialists; we're on the frontline and we do our absolute best but we need more resources,” says Liz Wilson, a teacher based in Birmingham. She describes a constant battle to get help for the children who need it - one which almost always ends in defeat due to a lack of money. “Over half of the cases of self-harm that we find in schools are not given the appropriate resources and intervention because the schools don't have the funding to deal with the issue.”
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