Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of mental health support available within schools.

Schools are best placed to decide themselves what support to offer to their pupils to support their mental health and wellbeing. The department does not collect detailed data on provision in schools, but does ask questions about schools’ perceptions of mental health support as part of our regular omnibus surveys, the results of which are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-and-college-panel-omnibus-surveys-for-2021-to-2022.

To help schools to make informed decisions on what support to provide, the department is funding all schools and colleges in England to train senior mental health leads who can put in place whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. This includes how to make sure they are including processes for identifying students, or specific groups, who need additional mental health support. Two thirds of schools and colleges will have been able to access funding by April 2023, backed by a £10 million investment for the 2022/23 financial year.​​

​​There are also currently 287 mental health support teams in place in around 4,700 schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing common mental health issues and and facilitating smoother access to external specialist support such as Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. These teams now cover 26% of pupils a year earlier than originally planned, and this will increase to 399 teams, covering around 35% of pupils by April 2023, with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024. Further information is available at: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/cyp/trailblazers/.