The Fonagy Review has found the mental health of young people has got worse. For those who believe that hope comes from the idea that the future will be better than the past, this is a disaster. To me it's personal.

My first course of counselling was about 12 years ago. And that was about 20 years too late. It took that long for me to realise that I didn't just have to live with panic attacks. Realising took friends to tell me that what my brain was putting me through was more than normal nerves, and was an identifiable, treatable problem.

I'll never know the truth, but I suspect the flaws in my mental health arrived in my early teenage years. Family finances were under pressure and my dad was very ill. My mum had lost her own father to lung cancer aged 14, when he was 40. My dad was 40 when he was diagnosed, my older sister, 14. It felt like (and my parents often said it was) history repeating itself.

The idea that you might need someone to talk to wasn't perhaps so common in the early 90s, though things did change.

I thought that as awareness of good mental health has grown, and stigma lessened, young people would do better, have more opportunities and live more inclusive, equal lives, and fewer of them would know the brain-screaming anxiety I have had, at my worst.

But mental distress has risen substantially among children and young people, especially young women.

We've just had World Mental Health Day, which gave us a moment to be honest about the challenges facing the younger generation and how we risk failing them if we don't change.

How do we know this?

The recently published review, commissioned by this Government and led by Professor Peter Fonagy, examines the prevalence of mental health conditions, ADHD and autism in England and the current levels of support people can access.

Its authors pull no punches.

It reflects a tougher world, with familiar burdens like economic insecurity, poverty and poor housing now compounded by harmful online content, fewer opportunities to belong, rest and connect and rising levels of loneliness.

This is not evidence of a generation becoming weaker but one beset by challenges many of us never faced growing up.

Professor Fonagy's review confronts the scale of the challenge.

The cruelly dismissive term ‘snowflake' quickly melts under the heat lamp of their scrutiny.

More than one million children were referred to mental health services in a single year, while more than 60,000 waited over two years.

Behind every statistic is a childhood interrupted and a family left carrying the burden of anxiety they should never bear alone.

The review offers a way forward. Its central recommendation is a shift from diagnosis-led systems to ones based on need.

Timely diagnosis is vital. It can unlock treatment and help people better understand themselves.

But that doesn't mean people should be left without support if they face delays in getting that diagnosis.

We are more than a clinical diagnosis. All of us deserve a full life, not just a label.

And that includes children, who should be able to receive practical help and early intervention when difficulties emerge, rather than waiting for diagnoses to unlock support and before distress becomes crisis.

For people, that should mean quicker, more personal support in the places where life happens: schools, colleges, communities and the NHS.

Community mental health support in England already includes Early Support and Young Futures Hubs. These drop-in, open-access spaces offer young people integrated counselling, wellbeing advice and support services without the need for referrals.

As the report says, the foundations for good mental health are laid in early infancy with secure attachment to parents and care givers. Healthy Babies services will give families trusted help through pregnancy and the first two years of a child's life.

The cross-Government Mental Health Strategy will turn the principles of early and ongoing support into action.

It will look beyond the NHS to schools, workplaces, councils, communities and the voluntary sector, overhauling how support is provided, reducing waiting times and tackling stigmas that stop people from seeking help.

It will also set out actions to support autistic people and people with ADHD to be able to participate fully in education, work and society.

Success will mean children back in classrooms, young people building relationships and careers, women heard earlier, and clinicians offering the right care at the right time.

The Fonagy review gives us the evidence. Our responsibility is to act on it.