Most vulnerable kids' futures 'at risk' over slashed funding for therapy (2025)

Notre Dame Centre staff face redundancy and therapeutic interventions to be withdrawn for more than 100 kids affected by addiction, mental health issues and family abuse

A service that seeks to steer the most vulnerable kids in Scotland into stable lives faces closure due to a funding axe.

The Notre Dame Centre in Glasgow provides a highly specialised range of services designed to get children with backgrounds of deep trauma back on track.

The charity was given just 19 days notice of the cash drain by Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS and partners at Glasgow City Council, who decided to cut a £500,000 annual contract.

A three month extension was later granted - but the centre’s bosses and supporters claim more than 100 families instantly face blighted futures.

Some of the youngsters are halfway through intensive terms of therapeutic support and experts believe that stopping them at such a stage will cause further harm to children.

Many of those currently being helped with play therapy and counselling have been affected by parental addiction, crime and mental health trauma.

Some have been exposed to family violence, sexual abuse and other harms that can knock their schooling, behaviour and future personal relationships catastrophically off track.

Many of those helped at NDC failed to get placed on the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) - which has been dogged by massive delays and missed targets over several years.

Notre Dame Centre CEO Margaret Brown said the service they offer is unique and proven to be effective.

She said the funding cut cannot be justified and that many kids and families will suffer.

Brown said: “We have been told that children will be given therapy ‘in-house’ but there is simply no capacity for such specialist care.

“Children spend time building up a trusting and therapeutic relationship with their worker.

“The ending process in general can sometimes be difficult and triggering for children who have experienced prior loss, trauma, or other adverse life experiences.

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“Ending therapy prematurely or abruptly will most certainly bring up feelings related to these past adverse or traumatic experiences as it is another form of loss.

“Put simply this would be harmful and is not ethical.”

Brown said problems that are not properly addressed continue into adolescence and adulthood with mental health issues.

She said: “Sadly the cycle then repeats itself when they themselves become parents.

“This proposal is short sighted and not cost effective in any way. Whilst it may save money in the short term, longer term it will cost agencies and society far more.”

MSP Bob Doris has written to Professor Jann Gardner, chief executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, to demand a U-turn after 17 staff at the centre were put on redundancy notice.

He also intends to raise the issue at the Scottish Parliament.

He believes the axe is being swung recklessly, with no proper planning.

Doris wrote: “For my part, I cannot comprehend that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and their partners would terminate the £500,000 contract with The Notre Dame Centre at such short notice, with no previous discussions that this was being considered.

“Nor indeed any discussions about what this would mean for the 100 vulnerable young people and their families with complex needs currently receiving support.

“This appears to simply be cutting a high quality service that benefits some of the most vulnerable families in Glasgow. Those families also appear to be an afterthought.”

Latest figures show that 4,362 Scottish kids were awaiting treatment via CAMHS.

The service has been dogged by poor supply and massive failure in meeting targets.

But the Notre Dame Centre claims to provide far more acute care than is available through the overstretched CAMHS.

Doris says NHSGCC should restore an added two years of funding - which was pledged when a tender was won in 2022 - to enable the centre to find new backers.

He states: “Even if they were fast- tracked into CAMHS for support I would note the service and joint therapeutic support offered by The Notre Dame Centre is not a CAMHS service.

“This would not be a like for like replacement of service and vital relationships will be destroyed.”

NDC uses a non-directive therapeutic approach, using play therapists, art therapists and psychologists to work with children. Specially trained social workers work in tandem with adult caregivers - often adoptive or foster parents.

A spokesperson for NHSGCC said its Specialist Children’s Service (SCS), in partnership with Glasgow City Social Work Services and Glasgow City Education, previously commissioned the Notre Dame Centre to deliver therapeutic services for children and young people.

The spokesperson said a two year contract from April 2023, was not renewed after review and that the SCS has developed “preferred and enhanced clinical pathways for dealing with children referred for therapeutic support”.

The spokesperson added: “By integrating services within local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, we will ensure that therapeutic support is accessible to all children and families within the health board, regardless of their location.”

“We have agreed and extended the notice period to the end of June to ensure the completion of interventions for children currently engaged with Notre Dame.”