Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what additional funding her Department plans to make available to ensure that all schools have a single point of contact for mental health services in (a) 2017-18, (b) 2018-19, (c) 2019-20, (d) 2020-21 and (e) 2021-22.

Good mental health is a priority for the Department. Mental health issues can have a profound impact on the whole of a child’s life, including their attainment. Schools can play an important role in promoting mental wellbeing and supporting pupils, but teachers are not mental health professionals and knowledge and practice in the mental health field is constantly developing. Action taken by them is best supported by advice from specialist services, as well as by access to treatment for pupils where needed. We are investing an additional £1.4 billion in children’s mental health services in the five years to 2020.

Our schools/Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) link joint training pilot, across 225 schools in 27 Clinical Commissioning Groups, identified a range of different models for schools working more closely with single points of contact in specialist mental health services – making use of the additional investment. These resulted in a strengthening of communication and joint working arrangements between schools and specialist services, with quantifiable improvements in understanding of the referral routes amongst school staff – leading in many cases to higher quality and more timely referrals.

We will be considering with the Department of Health how best to build on the results of this pilot to improve links between schools, colleges and NHS mental health services as a part of our joint children and young people’s mental health green paper, to be published by the end of the year. We will look at any funding requirements in that context.