I spent Saturday hanging out with old friends. Aside from me - the journalist - there was a civil servant, advertising executive, teacher, police officer, and psychologist.

Amid the usual pub banter, a long and serious conversation unfolded between the police officer, teacher and psychologist about violence in schools.

It began when the cop told the teacher they’d recently attended a violent school assault. A teenager had punched a teacher square in the face. There was a "campus cop" in the school, but that hadn’t stopped the incident.

The teacher explained the number of special needs children in schools was growing rapidly, and how - despite wanting to help these kids - there just wasn’t the support.

Read more by Neil Mackay

In their inner city school, there are no additional support needs (ASN) staff - none - even though numbers of special needs kids increased every year. Some kids with special needs can be violent.

The psychologist chipped in explaining that Scotland - like most western countries - is in the grip of a child mental health crisis, yet waiting times for kids to see someone like my pal is anywhere between four to six months, if you’re lucky. Something terrible could happen in that time, they added.

The three commiserated with each other about the rotten state of Scotland - and I thought to myself that as a journalist this conversation neatly expresses what we in the media call "a perfect storm’"

Each element of the conversation speaks to the other elements. The police officer’s experience explains the teacher’s experience, and the psychologist’s experience brings everything together.

Come Sunday, nursing a rotten mid-life hangover, I flicked through the........

© Herald Scotland