DON'T SCREW UP OUR NEXT GENERATION

>> Mum's fear as suicidal girl told to wait up to a year for help >> New figures reveal mental health timebomb for youngsters

-  RUTH SUTER

THE mum of a teenage girl who was brutally attacked on a school bus has backed urgent calls for mental health support for kids.

Vicky Donald's daughter Kaylynn, 13, was battered by a group of bullies as she travelled home from Bell Baxter High School in Ladybank, Fife, in October last year.

But despite Kaylynn telling mental health services the ordeal has left her suicidal, her family has been told they will need to wait between six and 12 months for support.

Vicky said: "Kids are seeing violence everywhere nowadays. They are watching their friends be perpetrators and victims and they need help to process it.

"Not giving them that help now is only going to screw up our next generation."

It comes after new figures show more than 5300 children and young people in Scotland are on waiting lists for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), with 147 of them waiting longer than a year.

This is outwith the Scottish Government's pledged 18-week target waiting time.

Vicky, 36, told the Record: "I'm extremely worried about the waiting period. We are sitting on tenterhooks wondering if the input we are putting in as a family will be enough to stop Kaylynn from harming herself before she gets support.

"I have done everything I can do as a parent. I have gone to the GP, waited on the CAMHS assessment and I'm taking all the advice that I can.