Pupils: Counselling

(asked on 22nd March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of the children referred to CAMHS in 2019-20 that did not meet the threshold to receive treatment received support from a school counselling service.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 30th March 2021

School and college-based counselling is valuable provision which can play a particularly effective role as part of a whole school or college approach within which support can come from several sources. In that context, it is important that schools and colleges have the freedom to decide what support to offer to students and staff based on their particular needs and drawing on an evidence base of effective practice. The purpose of the blueprint was to support schools to make provision and set out advice from school and counselling experts to illustrate to schools how to make best use of counselling support.

The government does not hold central data on the mental health support accessed by individual children and young people. The department does not require schools to provide regular information on the provision of counselling in schools and colleges for pupils and staff. Our most recent survey of mental health provision in schools and colleges published in 2017 found that 61% of schools and colleges (56% of primary schools, 84% of secondary schools and 93% of colleges) reported offering access to counselling service for their pupils.

In the long term, we remain committed to our joint green paper delivery programme with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, including introducing new mental health support teams for all schools and colleges, providing training for senior mental health leads in schools and colleges, and testing approaches to faster access to NHS specialist support.

We have recently announced a £79 million boost to children and young people’s mental health support, including through mental health support teams. These teams, which provide early intervention on mental health and emotional wellbeing issues in schools and colleges, will grow from over 180 teams currently established or in development to around 400 by April 2023, supporting nearly 3 million children across the country. This increase means that millions of children and young people will have access to significantly expanded mental health services.

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