School-based Counselling Services

Damien Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for securing the debate. It is particularly close to my heart, because in my constituency we have three of the UK’s leading specialist schools for children with learning difficulties. I have had the privilege of visiting them and speaking to staff and children, who I understand come from miles around for the specialist care that Merefield, Peterhouse and Presfield Schools provide. I realise how lucky we are to have those wonderful schools in Southport on our doorstep, and I also realise that, sadly, this is not a success shared universally across the UK. Indeed, the schools themselves have told me that they are at capacity, and that although they would like to take on more children, they are often unable to do so.

In the case of many children, it is not full-time specialist care that they need, but simply a friendly, qualified counsellor to whom they can speak in confidence, perhaps on a regular basis, about their problems. Small interventions now can pay dividends in the long run, helping children to achieve their potential.

I back the Government’s record on support for children’s mental health, particularly during covid, and am proud to have voted for many of those measures. In March last year, as covid took hold, I was pleased to support the offer of £79 million to boost mental health provision for children and young people. By April 2023, that should enable nearly 3 million children to have access to some 400 mental health support teams in schools and colleges. These are noble goals and I fully support them, but there is still much more to do.

Just two months later, we announced the provision of £17 million to improve mental health and wellbeing support in schools and colleges, with up to 7,800 institutions in England being offered up to £9.5 million to train senior mental health leads. These measures are clearly popular. The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy reports that 72% of adults believe that schools should offer counselling services, including some 79% of parents with children under the age of 18. Among 16 to 24-year-olds, the figure jumps to a staggering 83%. The support is clearly there, but, while the Government are doing an unprecedented amount to support mental health in schools, specific measures such as increased provision of well-trained schools-based counsellors would be of great benefit.

I do not think that fixing this is just a job for the Government. It is right that the decisions are delegated to schools, and that while the Government are clear that all schools should make counselling services available to their pupils, it is ultimately individual schools and colleges that know best what support to offer their students. That is why they should have the freedom to enact the Government’s recommendations as they wish. However, I would encourage them to work closely with their local NHS, clinical commissioning groups, councils and, most importantly, parents and carers of children, to achieve the ends that we all want to achieve.

In speaking to my constituents and helping them with their casework, I understand the difficulty that many have had in getting an educational health and care plan—an EHCP—once they are referred to SEND. This plan is crucial to the wellbeing of some children, as without it they will struggle to get the necessary arrangements implemented in school that they need for their mental wellbeing. My constituents suffer from a lack of information throughout the process of getting an EHCP, as well as ongoing delays, and they sometimes do not get the support they need. Children can find this frustrating, and I fear a situation where we see children with mental health issues being excluded because they cannot get the treatment they so clearly need.

We need to see mental health support being provided as early as possible in a child’s school career, so that it is there when they need it, not years after their mental illness first occurs. We need to look at what more we can do to support those with moderate mental health problems who do not need specialist schools, but rather qualified counsellors. We need to hit this Government’s ambitious target and then set even more ambitious ones until 100% of children have access to mental health support in schools.