Secondary Schools: Counselling Services

Debate between Lord Oates and Lord Nash

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many secondary schools in England do not currently provide in-school counselling services for their students.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, school-based counselling can be very valuable and we have published advice, drawn up with experts, on the way that schools can provide effective access to counselling. It is right for schools to decide on the support they provide for their pupils and we do not make them report centrally. However, we are undertaking a large-scale survey to give us nationally representative data on how schools support the mental well-being of their pupils, including through counselling.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that response. He will be aware of the anguish caused to young people and their parents when they are unable to access the services they need through mental health support in schools, or through child and adolescent mental health services. Will the Minister review the criteria used by CAMHS in assessing mental health service referrals in the light of recent figures published by the Education Policy Institute’s Mental Health Commission on young people’s mental health, which show that a quarter of all referrals from schools to CAMHS are currently declined?

[Lord Nash]

We are working with the Department of Health to commission a review of CAMHS in order to identify areas for improvement, and every clinical commissioning group has been asked to submit a plan to NHS England on how it is going to improve CAMHS provision. As the noble Lord will know, we are also expanding our joint training pilot for single points of contact in schools and in CAMHS from the original 225 schools to a further 1,200.