The Commons Education Committee has been urged by MPs to extend the roll-out of mental health support teams to all schools by 2023, with current plans for one-third of schools described as “lacking ambition”.
The government aims to create 400 mental health support teams, covering one-third of pupils by 2023. These teams would offer mental health support in groups of schools, mainly through NHS wellbeing practitioners who have received specialist training.
However, these plans have been criticised this week by Lord Layard, a children’s wellbeing expert, as inadequate and he urged the Commons Education Committee to push for a national roll-out to schools before the end of this Parliament.
Lord Layard said that only one-third of children with diagnosable mental ill health currently get support from NHS specialist services and called this figure “shocking” and “unbelievable”.
“The young people in the most trouble are the people who are diagnosable... 10 per cent of our children. The shocking thing is that only about a third of these children get any form of specialist support. This is much worse than for adults,” he told the committee.
“We have CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health service) that has such a high threshold – unless you are stabbing your sister, or something like that, you’re assessed not to be bad enough. And until recently, there have been no resources for anyone below the CAMHS threshold.”
This lack of access to support for children comes amid growing and urgent need. BBC analysis revealed that there has been a 77 per cent increase in the number of children needing specialist treatment for severe mental health crisis – with some 409,347 under-18s referred to the NHS in England for specialist care for issues, such as suicidal thoughts and self-harm, between April and October 2021. Meanwhile a report from England’s Children’s Commissioner found that only 32 per cent of children with a diagnosable mental health need were accessing treatment in 2020-21.
While mental health charities broadly welcome the government’s plans for schools, they agree that the plans don’t go far enough. Catherine Roche, chief executive of children’s mental health charity, Place2Be, told the BBC this week that her organisation’s teams in schools were seeing children come forward with really severe needs – and that while the mental health support teams in schools were a good initiative, they needed to be extended to all schools.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, Shadow Minister for Mental Health, told the Commons: “Imagine if we treated childhood cancer like we do children’s mental illness, waiting for symptoms to get worse before they see a specialist, waiting for months or even years for treatment and leaving patients and parents to rely on charity – there would be an outcry... And this is what the government is doing.”
If you are looking for support for yourself or someone else, please find local sources of support on this website.
West Sussex Mind runs a range of free and low-cost courses about children’s mental health for parents and carers and professionals working with children and young people. See courses available.
