We have to make change happen. Because children are struggling. Parents are struggling. Everyone is struggling.

I’ve spent many months researching the complex challenges children with additional needs are facing.

I have listened to agencies across education, the local authority, health, the voluntary sector, and academia. I have listened to parents. I have listened to children.

Every conversation I have leads to dozens more. I barely feel I have scratched the surface, and yet the queue of people seeking help grows ever longer. Every personal story insightful and challenging, every story needing a solution.

Don’t get me wrong, many children and young people are thriving.

They are a generation of such incredible talent, displaying extraordinary brilliance in their school work, in their community, in their hope for the future and there is so much to celebrate.

However, too many are finding life really tough and their childhood challenging.

The deeper I delve, the more complex the situation. But at its most basic, there is not enough money, there are not enough staff and ‘the system which must deliver needs radical reform.

I have met with many Ministers and Shadow Ministers, and have meetings pending, to discuss the challenges and the opportunities.

Even from these discussions, it is clear that Government is not joined up and there is not enough thinking, as if this was too difficult or, sadly, too low a priority.

I have the privilege of meeting with leading experts, academics and practitioners, those who are advocating change, campaigners as well as hearing the lived experience of families from across the country and in York.

I want our city to lead the debate, pilot the change, and demonstrate how radical reform can give every child the very best start.

Those working with children with additional needs are nothing but exceptional, dedicated and rightfully proud of what they are doing.

Even so, parents and carers needs are still not met and their expertise, not recognised.

If you invest in what matters most, then you have to invest in early years, in childhood and right through to the transition into adulthood.

Let me give an example. Just 8.1 per cent of the entire NHS budget is spent on mental health. And only 7 per cent of the mental health budget is spent on young people, despite 75 per cent of mental health challenges commencing in childhood.

Do the maths. Add in how York schools are the 17th lowest funded in the country, and in the bottom third for additional needs funding.

Children’s social care funding is ever challenged as Government starves local authorities. Charities simply make incredible things happen, but are woefully under-resourced. If funding was fit for the task, then how much more could be achieved.

We have got to recognise that Covid had a profound impact on young people.

Many are more are anxious. Layer this with autism or ADHD or for others ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’, trauma, mental health challenges or Foetal Alcohol Disorder Spectrum.

Add in social media, peer pressure and a heavy emphasis on the importance of achievement and exam pressures. Then there is puberty and the rollercoaster this serves up.

Add this into a ‘system’ which is at breaking point, and it is not surprising that this is not a recipe for success.

When help is needed, the system can turn adversarial as parents 'battle' and 'fight' for their child and often feel invisible or humiliated by a system which is out of tune with their reality.

My conclusion is that we need a radical rethink of how we educate, support and care for young people today, in and out of school.

In other countries, they are leading the way.

We need to learn from the global best, ensure that the constant micro-traumas which cause burnout are replaced by therapeutic approaches, and that we see a new focus on co-production – young people and parents, all agencies and services, and instead of squeezing young people into a broken system, we rebuild it around their needs.

I know there is a willingness to get this right. We have to as it has been broken for too long. As I continue on this journey, I trust that all will rise to the challenge.

Rachael Maskell is the Labour MP for York Central