Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of recording verbal abuse of children by adults as its own maltreatment subgroup.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

Protection from abuse and neglect is a fundamental right for all children. The government’s priority for all vulnerable children is to keep them safe, protect their welfare and put their best interests at the heart of every decision. It is about supporting and intervening with the right families, at the right time, and, most importantly, in the right way.

In the department’s 'Children in need’ statistics release, we publish data on factors identified at the end of an assessment. Currently, verbal abuse is not defined but would fall into emotional abuse. For that reason, the department has not made a specific assessment of the impact of verbal abuse on children, but it is the government’s priority to ensure all children are protected and safe from harm, and we have an ambitious programme of reform to children’s social care underway. The latest statistics release is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need.

On 2 February 2023, the department published ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, an implementation strategy and consultation which sets out our plans to transform children’s social care, in response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, the national review into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, and the Competition Markets Authority report.

The department’s strategy focuses on six pillars of action to transform children’s social care, including to help families overcome challenges at the earliest stage, keep children safe from significant harm, and make sure children in care have stable, loving homes, long-term loving relationships, and opportunities for a good life.

Over the next two years, the department will address urgent issues and lay the foundations for wider-reaching reform across the whole system, which will have an impact for those children experiencing abuse, including verbal abuse.

Furthermore, the statutory guidance, ‘Working together to safeguard children’ (2018), is clear that, if at any time it is considered that a child may be a child in need or has suffered significant harm or is likely to do so, a referral should be made immediately to a local authority’s children social care service.

In terms of supporting children’s mental health, the department has committed to offer all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025, enabling them to introduce effective, whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. More than 14,000 schools and colleges have now received a senior mental health lead training grant, including more than 7 in 10 state-funded secondary schools.

Intervening early is critical. To expand access to early mental health support, the department is continuing to roll out Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) to schools and colleges. As of April 2023, MHSTs covered 35% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England. We are extending coverage of MHSTs to an estimated 44% of pupils and learners by the end of this financial year and at least 50% by the end of March 2025.