By Oliver Dickinson

More teenagers across Scotland are set to benefit from a pioneering scheme that offers mental health support within 24 hours.

Specially trained frontline staff, including police officers and ambulance workers, treat people in extreme distress before referring them to experts within 24 hours.

The Distress Brief Interventions (DBI) scheme is now being expanded to include 16 and 17-year-olds.

With a 15% rise in suicides last year, to nearly 800, and 26,000 on the waiting list for treatment, it's hoped increasing access could hold the key to getting help to those who need it faster.

STV News spoke to one young woman who admitted that, without it, she wouldn't be here today.

Chloe Connacher said: "I lost my job so I became unemployed and from there it spiralled out of control.

"Now I'm myself again. I can do out, I'm at work, doing studying. It's an amazing change."

A pilot of the Scottish Government-funded DBI scheme begin in Aberdeen, Borders, Inverness and Lanarkshire in 2017.

Those is need are first seen by trained frontline staff, whose job is to ease their immediate distress.

If further support is needed, they are referred to the DBI service with a promise to make contact and begin treatment planning within 24 hours.

Kevin O'Neil, DBI programme manager, said: "So many frontline staff were voicing a level of frustration with how difficult it can be at times to get access to quick support, particularly for people who maybe don't fit that traditional criteria or fit very clearly into mental health or an addictions box.

"Frontline clinicians have a very short amount of time usually to asses those criteria and make a decision.

"What DBIs do is recognise distress and 'demedicalises' it. What people need is someone to listen to them, give them space to work out their problems and then connect them to support.

"We want to make sure that we have a compassionate process, that we have an understanding process and that hopefully that leads to understanding and compassionate communities.

"The results are telling us very quickly that people really appreciate the compassionate frontline response of staff, people are telling us they are feeling listened to, they are telling us they feel more capable of managing both their current and any future distress."