Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many mental health support teams (a) are in place and (b) will be in place in the next 12 months.

The delivery of Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) in education settings is led by NHS England, with support from the department. MHSTs support the mental health needs of children and young people aged 5 to 18 in primary, secondary and further education (FE).

MHSTs have three core functions:

• To deliver evidence-based interventions for mild-to-moderate mental health issues.
• To support the senior mental health lead, where established, in each school or college to introduce or develop a whole school or college approach.
• To give timely advice to school and college staff, and liaise with external specialist service to help children and young people to get the right support and stay in education.

Guidance on senior mental health lead training can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/senior-mental-health-lead-training, and guidance on a whole school or college approach to mental health support can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-children-and-young-peoples-emotional-health-and-wellbeing.

There are currently 398 operational MHSTs in place, and a further 100 teams are currently training Education Mental Health Practitioners, which means around 500 MHSTs will be up and running by April 2024.

An estimated 1.4 million (32%) primary school pupils, and 1.6 million (46%) secondary school pupils are covered by the current operational MHSTs. Data is not yet available by school type for the next 12 months. The department anticipates coverage of pupils in schools and learners in FE to increase from the current 35% to around 44% overall in 2024.

Further information on the MHST rollout progress is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1156762/Transforming_CYPMH_implementation_programme__data_release_May_2023.pdf.