Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to help offer mental health support to child refugees in schools.

The government is committed to improving mental health and wellbeing outcomes.

Schools are not specialist mental health providers, if child refugees experience symptoms of poor mental health, evidence-based treatment should be accessed via their general practitioner or local Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services.

However, schools have an important role to play in identifying and responding to emerging or existing mental health issues, whether that be by providing targeted pastoral support, such as in school counselling, or ensuring referrals are made to external specialist support.

The department provides mental health and behaviour guidance to support education staff to identify children in need of extra mental health support, which includes working with external agencies. The guidance can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2.

The department has also published guidance and signposting to external sources of mental health and wellbeing support for teachers, school staff and school leaders. This information can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mental-health-and-wellbeing-support-in-schools-and-colleges.

To support children and young people arriving from Ukraine, the department has published a resource pack signposting schools and colleges to offers of support for Ukrainian children and young people which covered mental health and wellbeing, amongst other areas including learning English. This information is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/helping-ukrainian-students-in-schools.

To support the effective use of training and guidance on supporting and promoting mental health in schools, the department is funding all schools and colleges in England to train senior mental health leads who can put in place whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. This approach should encompass robust processes for identifying students, or specific groups, who need additional mental health support. Two thirds of schools and colleges will have been able to access funding by April 2023, backed by £10 million in the 2022/23 financial year. Further information is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/senior-mental-health-lead-training.

The department is also increasing the number of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges, which provide early intervention for those experiencing mild to moderate mental health issues and facilitate smoother access to specialist services for those who require additional support, which may include child refugees. Further information is available here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/cyp/trailblazers/.