Mental Health Support: Educational Settings
Amanda Hack Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
I first want to say how incredible it is that Members are stood here in the Houses of Parliament discussing the mental health of our young people, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for bringing forward such a critical debate.
In a previous role on the health scrutiny committee for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, it was clear to me that young people are waiting too long for treatment, and that is having a long-term detrimental impact on them. That is in addition to the increasing number of young people on too-long CAMHS waiting lists. We also need to look at specialist services, such as for those suffering with disordered eating, which has doubled in just a couple of years. It is clear that we need to improve early intervention for our young people. We have to ensure that young people discuss mental health not only as part of the curriculum, but with their peers. We also need to ensure that young people reach out for support when they need it. Just as importantly, we need to listen to them and act when they do reach out—often, young people are ignored.
Our children and young adults have experienced a global pandemic. We cannot ignore this period in their lives and the impact it has had on some of them. I have two teenagers, so I have seen it at first hand. By increasing mental health support in educational settings, we know that we can provide the foundations that our young people will need for their future.
We are discussing something that cannot always be seen on the surface and that is often viewed as off-limits. I often think about a group of young people I visited in an alternative educational provision setting in Moira in my constituency. From speaking to them, I know how difficult and tough life has already been for them at such a young age, but I also feel empowered by them—they were amazing young people. They knew the support they had received when they needed it had turned their lives around.
For some, school can be six hours of relentless bullying, abuse or loneliness. Sixty per cent of our 11 to 16-year-olds told Girlguiding that they had received negative comments about their appearance from other people, some of which were in a school setting. Nearly half of seven to 10-year-olds say they feel alone some or all of the time—seven to 10 is so little. Too often when we have conversations about mental health support, we just talk about teenagers. Mental health support needs to be available for young people of every age to help them build healthy habits, to help them talk about what they need from us, and to set out where they can go for support.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
That is a salient point. Before I became an MP, I worked with young people in youth work. Increasingly over the last few years, mental health issues that we normally saw in teenagers were affecting younger and younger children. One reason was younger and younger children having access to social media and not having the breaks we would have had as young people. My hon. Friend’s point is valid—will she tell me more about that?
Amanda Hack
Absolutely. The sad fact is that we always talk about teenagers, but if we can give that resilience to children as young as seven to 10, we might be able to prevent them from becoming poorly when they get older. We have to start those conversations as early as possible to build resilience and confidence in our young people. Putting mental health support in educational settings will mean not only that we can change the culture in schools for children struggling with their mental health, but that we will be able to see how young people can be supported in the right place, at the right time and in the right setting.
John Milne
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my speech, I referred to West Sussex county council but neglected to mention that, as declared in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I am still a member of that council. I want to put that on the record—my apologies.
SEND Provision: Derbyshire
Amanda Hack Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Linsey Farnsworth
I agree. Crisis—a word that I have already used in this debate—is what we are facing right across the country. I am very concerned about that. In Derbyshire we face that very challenge, as well as all the additional challenges of the systemic problems in the county council.
As high as the legal costs for families can be, the emotional costs are still higher. All parents and carers want the best for their children and I found it impossible not to feel for families who, time and again, talked about being exhausted from constantly fighting: for timely, accurate diagnoses and care plans; for the little provision that is available; and even for the transport needed to get their children to school. Many families are at breaking point. They say that it should not be so hard, and they are right.
The Conservatives at Derbyshire county council have acknowledged the failings and issued an apology. That is a necessary first step, but it is far from sufficient. It has been five months since Ofsted uncovered widespread and systemic failings. Although the council claims to be making improvements, the pace of change is far too slow.
Only two weeks ago, fellow Derbyshire Labour MPs and I met representatives of the National Association of Headteachers. The stories that they told mirrored the frustrations and heartache experienced by the hundreds of parents and carers who have reached out to us in desperation. They told us that they, too, face a daily fight to be heard by Derbyshire county council. Too often, their emails go unanswered, they are made to jump through bureaucratic hoops to access the support that should be in place, and the revolving door of leadership has led to confusion and uncertainty.
While the leaders and the plans might change, we were told say that there have been no tangible improvements. EHCPs, which should be processed within 20 weeks—a long time for any parent to wait—can take more than 50 weeks, as my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) said. That is practically a year. Not only do educators not feel confident that their concerns will be heard; they fear petty reprisals. More worrying still, they said that the lack of funding is affecting not only their most vulnerable pupils but all pupils, as class sizes increase and teaching capacity cannot keep up.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this incredibly important debate. My constituency neighbours Derbyshire, and I recently held a roundtable on SEND provision with parents and teachers from schools and colleges. The issue that repeatedly came up was funding, and the disparity in funding not just between schools but across local authority areas. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need consistency of SEND provision across county lines in order to provide good-quality SEND provision for all our children?
Linsey Farnsworth
I agree that we need more consistency. One of the concerns in the Ofsted report just for Derbyshire was that there is no consistency, because of the lack of a clearly defined joint strategy. The support is described by parents as a postcode lottery—we have that problem just within Derbyshire itself.
Teachers are working so hard for the children in their care, but they still feel that they are failing them, through no fault of their own. Schools are relying on the good will of staff just to function. Due to insufficient funding, stress and exhaustion, we are losing amazing teachers who give their all every day. That is the real-life impact of widespread and systemic failings.
Many families still feel helpless, as their children are labelled disruptive and parents’ ability to be a good parent and provide adequate care is called into question. Worst of all, I hear from parents of children, some as young as 12, who have become so desperate that they have considered taking their own lives. These children should be thriving in a stimulating learning environment, enjoying making friends and developing their skills. They should not feel so forgotten and lost that they tell their parents that they want to die.
As I have said, we are at crisis point in Derbyshire. We cannot allow this situation to continue. The children of Derbyshire deserve better; their families deserve better; and we, as Labour MPs, demand better.
I am grateful to the Department for issuing an improvement notice on 14 January, setting out the requirements the Secretary of State has placed on Derbyshire county council to ensure improvements. This decisive action appears to have made the council jump to attention, with its priority impact plan published two weeks later. However, Madam Deputy Speaker, you can understand the scepticism of educators across Derbyshire, given that they have seen it all before, with no fewer than eight plans put in place since 2018. This time must be different. If this Conservative county council cannot or will not make these improvements with the urgency they demand, the voters can replace it with a Labour council that absolutely will.
My fellow Labour Derbyshire MPs and I have promised that as hard as teachers, parents and carers have been fighting, we will fight, too. We are fighting for real change, real accountability and a real commitment to providing the education and support that every child with special educational needs and disabilities deserves. That is our promise, and it is one we intend to keep.
Financial Education
Amanda Hack Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) for bringing this crucial conversation to the Chamber. We are not born with the ability to open an ISA, choose a private pension or invest our savings. We do not have a natural intuition about how to save or manage debt, or how the tax system works, so why are we sending young people from school with little or no formal financial education?
Having worked for Leicestershire Training and Enterprise Council 25 years ago, where we supported young people and adults into education, and having held a number of roles in the social housing sector supporting tenant welfare, it is clear to me that there is a gap in people’s financial knowledge. I am really proud of some of the work that I did before coming to this place—particularly leading a team to set up the financial and digital inclusion project Moneywise for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, targeting individuals, including in my constituency of North West Leicestershire, who were digitally and financially excluded. From running that project, the lack of basic skills around financial education, and how much it was holding people back, became clear to me. Through the project, we were able to empower people to have a much more positive relationship with their finances.
As a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, it has already become apparent to me that a lack of conversation and knowledge, and probably confidence, about long-term financial planning, is having a detrimental impact on our relationship with our finances. By providing financial education to young people, we have an opportunity to reset our relationship with money and skills. A study by Compare the Market and the financial education charity MyBnk found that almost two thirds of adults surveyed said that they did not recall receiving financial education at school. The same study found that only two in five respondents considered themselves financially literate.
There is hope, though. My son is currently studying core maths at AS-level, and we have had many conversations about financial management, from insurance to rent, and mortgages to savings, just because of that course. This is an issue that can unite us across party lines. Our young people deserve that. At the very least, they deserve a basic understanding of how to manage their future finances. It is not just current and future generations that could benefit; the Investing and Saving Alliance projected that, were the Government to prioritise financial education, we could inject an extra £7 billion into the economy each year. That would make a real, measurable and tangible difference to so many young people. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Primary School Breakfast Clubs
Amanda Hack Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Mr Dhesi
Thank you very much for that clarification, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; he is 100% right. I take this moment also to pay tribute to the amazing teachers and staff at schools who go way beyond the call of duty to look after children, and who are faced not only with young hungry children, but sometimes with children who do not even have clean uniforms because, with the cost of living pressures, their families cannot get their school uniforms washed regularly.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I want to raise the work that our teachers and school staff do to ensure that our children get a hot meal at lunch time—and now, hopefully, in the morning as well. We must ensure that we give our children the best start on a school day, and the roll-out of breakfast clubs will help us to do that.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend is 100% right. I hope that teachers and teaching staff will take comfort and solace from the fact that policies are now being implemented to help, rather than hinder, them. They will be able to do their primary duty of educating kids and broadening their horizons, rather than having to worry about feeding and clothing them in an appropriate manner.
Healthy habits start early. What consideration will be given to the nutritional value of meals provided to children? As the Minister will know, ensuring that all children are given a nutritious and healthy meal when they come to school will improve not only attainment, but health outcomes. It is not just children whose lives will be improved via access to breakfast clubs, because indirect economic benefits will also stem from this scheme. Right now, 20% of mothers who have their youngest child in primary school are unemployed, and 35% are in part-time employment. With childcare costs ballooning, greater access to round-the-clock care will mean that parents do not have their careers dictated by the school run. Parents will have more support and independence to find full-time employment.