A charity on the frontline of Scotland’s youth mental health crisis has spoken out after raising £10,000 to help desperate teenagers failed by overstretched CAMHS services.
04:30, 31 Jan 2026Updated 08:56, 31 Jan 2026
Jackie Walls founder of Tartan Talkers with her nephew Scott who took his own life.
A mental health charity has told how it was forced to fundraise £10,000 to secure urgent private treatment for teenagers in crisis after they were unable to access NHS support.
Tartan Talkers, a small male suicide prevention and awareness charity based in Dunfermline, stepped in after three vulnerable young people rang its helpline.
Founder Jackie Walls said the at-risk kids struggled to get GP appointments or referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), despite being in urgent need of help.
Jackie, 57, told the Record: “Our helpline regularly receives calls from teenagers who feel abandoned by the system.
“Young people in crisis can hardly get any help. We’ve had a number of kids who say they can’t get referred or they’ve been waiting too long for intervention.”
Jackie said the charity felt it had no option but to help the three boys and front up the case for access to a clinical psychologist in Edinburgh.
Jackie Walls founder of Tartan Talkers with her nephew Scott who took his own life.(Image: Supplied)
Jackie continued: “We felt we had to do something, so we fundraised £10,000 to send them treatment because it was the difference between life and death.
“I truly believe we would have lost at least one of them if we hadn’t stepped.”
She added the support the teenagers received was “fantastic” but that private care is simply unaffordable for most families.
“You cannot do this if you’re in crisis and don’t have money. It’s heartbreaking is that the professionals are there, but there’s no funding to get young people to them.”
Jackie Walls
Jackie set up Tartan Talkers when she lost her nephew, Scott, to suicide in 2022.
It is not specifically a youth mental health charity, but it regularly receives calls from young people with nowhere else to turn, with their youngest recorded caller being just 13-years-old.
The experiences of Tartan Talkers reflect figures reported by the Record’s Save Young Lives campaign as we told that thousands of vulnerable kids are languishing on mental health waiting lists – some for years – despite our government’s promise they should be seen within 18 weeks of referral.
Jackie added: “It takes so much courage for a young person to say they need help. When they finally speak up, many are met with a wall of silence.”
The Save Young Lives campaign was launched in November and has demanded urgent action to tackle mental health crisis among kids, as harrowing figures show 26 per cent of deaths among young Scots are by probable suicide.
We launched the Save Young Lives campaign in November calling for action on the youth suicide epidemic.(Image: UGC)
We are calling for waiting lists for support to be reduced and for suicide prevention to be taught in schools as part of the curriculum.
Jackie believes early intervention is vital and is backing the Record’s campaign.
She said: “Open, safe conversations will help reduce stigma and build resilience. We have to get in there before they leave school and not try to put sticking plasters on afterwards.
“If we don’t address youth mental health now we risk a lost generation.”
Jackie’s nephew Scott.(Image: Supplied)
Recalling her own heartbreak after the loss of her nephew, Jackie said: “The consequences are huge for families. You don’t know how to begin to pick up the pieces.
“We were completely oblivious to his mental health struggles. He didn’t show any signs. We later found out he had been to the doctor, but he couldn’t get through to anyone when he needed to talk.
“That’s why we started the helpline — so when someone feels like this, there is someone who will pick up..”
Tartan Talkers
The last recorded data on youth deaths in Scotland from 2023 shows that of the 304 young people who died, 79 deaths were caused by probable suicide.
The latest statistics from Public Health Scotland show thousands of children are being referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services ( CAMHS ) every year.
Between April and June this year, statistics show that 2,565 referrals to CAMHS were knocked back – which made up for a third of all cases.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Charities like this do phenomenal work to support children and young people in their communities. That is why our investment in community-based supports – for children, young people and adults – totals £164m since 2020.
“It is welcome that over the last year the CAMHS waiting time target has been met nationally, with 91.5% of children and young people seen within 18 weeks in the latest quarter.
“We have significantly strengthened services and increased CAMHS staffing by more than 50% over the past decade and half of patients are now starting treatment within five weeks. The overall waiting list is down by 5.3% and whilst pressures remain, we know that in addition to CAMHS our wider community mental health provision reached almost 80,000 children, young people and their families last year.”