Schools-based strategy launched to improve children’s mental health care

The government is launching a new schools-based initiative to address the crisis in mental health services for children and young people.

The strategy aims to improve the support and counselling available in primary and secondary schools for young people with mental health conditions, and will prioritise pupils’ wellbeing rather than focusing purely on league tables.

In a speech at the Children and Young People Now Awards, Sam Gyimah, education and childcare minister, is expected to acknowledge the problems with the current system and present his vision for improving what schools can offer.

“It’s right that we renew our focus on the character, resilience, and wellbeing of children and young people – it’s one of the department’s biggest priorities over the coming months,” the minister will say.

Gyimah said he would be working the PSHE Association to help schools teach pupils about mental health in order to banish the damaging stigma around mental health problems.

“Where schools provide access to counselling services for their pupils, it can help develop a supportive culture, keeping pupils engaged with their peers, and with learning,” he said.

“I’m pleased to announce the development of a new departmental strategy that focuses on getting experts to distil what it is that makes for good counselling services in primary and secondary schools – and what the wider benefits can be, how we can unlock the potential of pupils, and work out when they need more specialist help.

“Because we know that more than half of adults with a mental health problem were first diagnosed in childhood, and of that number, fewer than half were treated appropriately as children.”

Thursday’s announcement is the first step in what the minister said would be a bigger push from the Department for Education on mental health in the coming months, taking in evidence from professionals and young people.

In June the government issued advice to schools to help teachers identify and support those pupils whose behaviour suggests they may have underlying mental health problems in the hope that fewer pupils would be wrongly labelled as troublemakers. A 2012 Centre for Mental Health report estimated around 15% of pupils aged five to 16 have mental health problems that put them at increased risk of developing more serious issues in the future.

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