Given the over-reliance on CAMHS in rural areas as a response to mental ill- health amongst children and young people there is an urgent need to address the shortfall in youth services. Including youth services under the levelling-up agenda would give children and young people’s wellbeing the strategic prominence and profile it needs. It is therefore a missed opportunity that it has not been included in the levelling-up missions, or at least, identified as key to levelling-up in the ‘rural overview’ of the missions (in DEFRA’s second rural proofing progress report). The Government is investing new funding to grow youth services, but we are not able to evaluate how much it addresses rural need or to what extent it is starting to bring them up to previous levels of service. (Paragraph 190) We recommend that: a) the Government amend the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to include an additional mission on young people’s mental health and wellbeing and the Rural Mental Health 83 provision of youth services; and develop a metric to measure progress with ONS, for youth services and outcomes for young people’s wellbeing in rural and urban areas b) DCMS and DEFRA issue a call for evidence, consulting with local government, charities and children and young people, to assess current and planned new provision for rural youth services against need, to establish if a projected shortfall remains, and c) by the end of this year, 2023, DCMS and DEFRA to publish findings from the call for evidence on rural youth services and develop proposals to fund and make up for any shortfall in provision over the next ten years. 84 Rural Mental Health