Some children in Cheshire East don't even have a bed to sleep in so the cost of living crisis will impact even further on their well-being and performance at school, a councillor said.

Cllr Laura Smith (Labour) said the mental health and well-being of children who don't have an 'adequate home' would be affected even more by witnessing their parents struggle with ever increasing financial pressures as food and fuel prices soar.

"In the areas that we represent in Crewe there's children with no beds, things like this, people haven't got a mattress, a bed to sleep in.

"How can you then go and have a healthy day at school where you're going to be learning and taking on board?" she asked at Monday's meeting of the children and families committee.

Cllr Smith praised the work the council was doing regarding the mental health and well-being of children, but she asked how it was working with the housing department and others to help alleviate the pressures on hard-pressed families.

"I think this is one of the huge crises so many of our children are facing – they don't have a home which is adequate and that obviously has a huge mental health impact, as does watching their parents struggling with the cost of living crisis that we're now starting to really feel," she said.

"I feel that it's very difficult for us to talk about mental health and well-being of children without addressing the fact that so many of these children are going to be witnessing huge financial pressures in their household and that burden doesn't go away when they go into school, that stays with them.

"As somebody who, as a child, experienced it, the weight of it is incredible, incredibly hard."

Clare Williamson, interim director of early help and prevention at Cheshire East Council, had earlier told the meeting how the council had continued funding the post of a mental health coordinator, originally grant funded by the DfE, and introduced programmes into schools such as My Happy Mind, which had benefited pupils and teachers.

She told Cllr Smith: "As part of early help and prevention we will be looking at holistic needs of the children and that, absolutely, takes on board in regards of understanding what is going on within that family home.

"We will need to be looking at how we support our families."

Laura Smith has represented Crewe South since February 2020.

She will celebrate two years sitting on Cheshire East Council on February 27.

She has 35,000 followers on Twitter.

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