Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he take steps to ensure his Department works with the Department for Health and Social Care to develop a children’s mental health workforce.

The Department for Education has a joint programme of work with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, and Health Education England to deliver the proposals set out in the green paper ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’. It covers action to incentivise all schools and colleges to identify and train senior mental health leads, to introduce and fund new Mental Health Support Teams linked to schools and colleges, and to pilot a four week waiting time for access to specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services.

Mental Health Support Teams will be established in 20-25% of England by 2023. The teams will be made up of additional trained mental health workers, supervised by suitable NHS staff and will work closely with other professionals such as educational psychologists, school nurses, counsellors and social workers. The impact of the new teams will be evaluated, including the effect they have on wider provision. The new teams will make up part of the wider increase in NHS children and young people’s mental health services and workforce set out in the NHS Ten-Year Plan. The joint delivery programme is linked to the management of the Ten-Year plan to ensure that the increase in workforce is delivered in a coherent way.