Mental Health Services: Children and Young People

(asked on 18th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of the recommendations contained in the report entitled, Time for a Clean Slate; Children’s Mental Health at the Heart of Education, published by Barnado's in May 2020.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 26th June 2020

The government is committed to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people as a central part of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak. We welcome the reports that Barnardo’s and others have published to help inform how that can be done most effectively.

The report calls for reassurance for children and young people and parents about returning to school. We agree the return is a key part of promoting mental health and wellbeing as attendance at school allows social interaction with peers, carers and teachers, which benefits wellbeing. Children in reception, year 1 and year 6 are now able to return to primary, and year 10 and year 12 pupils are able to receive face-to-face support at secondary. Primaries with capacity can bring back additional groups, in line with existing protective measures, and we have given schools the flexibility to have face-to-face ‘check-ups’ with all pupils during the summer term, which will ensure more children and young people are able to achieve this benefit. Our intention is for all children to return to school from September and guidance will be published soon.

We are clear that children, young people and parents need to know it is safe to return to school. That is why our advice sets out further information on how this can be achieved safely and effectively, and it is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/what-parents-and-carers-need-to-know-about-early-years-providers-schools-and-colleges-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.

The report also calls for the education system to prioritise child welfare and wellbeing as well as guidance to support schools with staff and pupil mental health and wellbeing. We have put it at the heart of our guidance both for children at home and in the guidance and planning frameworks for children returning to school. We will continue to develop this guidance to reflect the latest situation and scientific advice.

Online education resources are available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-online-education-resources.

The planning framework for return is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-educational-and-childcare-settings-to-prepare-for-wider-opening-from-1-june-2020/opening-schools-for-more-children-and-young-people-initial-planning-framework-for-schools-in-england.

We have put in place further support for children and teachers on mental health and wellbeing. This includes training for teachers, such as a new module developed with clinical experts on how to teach about mental health in health education, which is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-mental-wellbeing.

We have also provided grants to the Education Support Partnership and Timewise to support teachers’ mental health and flexible working.

As the report suggests, schools need to be able to make additional provision to support pupils to make up for time lost to COVID-19. That is why the government has announced a £1 billion COVID-19 ‘catch-up’ package to directly tackle the impact of lost teaching time. More information is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/billion-pound-covid-catch-up-plan-to-tackle-impact-of-lost-teaching-time.

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