School-based Counselling Services

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

It is an honour to be able to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) on securing it and the Backbench Business Committee on granting the House time to discuss such an important matter.

I want to start with an admission. When I first became an MP, I did not think that schools should be involved in matters that were beyond the core curriculum, such as mental health. My mind was changed pretty swiftly in two ways. First, my own brush with anxiety and depression in 2012 enlightened me about mental health and cast aside any unconscious prejudice I may have had about who is affected by poor mental wellbeing. The second came through the privilege that we, as Members, have of visiting schools in our constituency and seeing that education is holistic, child-centred and rarely textbook—I ask the House to forgive the pun.

Having had my lightbulb moment, I now feel a responsibility to stand up in this Chamber to advocate for better mental health services for our children. Our child and adolescent mental health services are, I am afraid, overwhelmed, and we could, and perhaps should, have another three-hour debate about that. However, while that remains the case, the system of support for our children needs to be widened, and that is where our schools come in.

Reading the briefings for this debate, I was struck by the statistics of deteriorating mental wellbeing among our children, especially following covid, but the stat that made me feel sick was in the brief provided by YoungMinds, which noted:

“In 2017, suicide was the most common cause of death for both boys and girls aged between 5 and 19”.

That made me want to cry. There are so many heartbreaking stories of children whose lives have been robbed by a disease of which they had no control, but suicide should be preventable, if we have the right awareness, training and essential support services in place. No one, but especially no child, should lose their life to suicide.

Prior to this debate, I sought some thoughts from a handful of schools in my constituency, both primary and secondary, just as a snapshot reflection of need and provision. Anything I say from here onwards is not a criticism of the services that they, as schools, provide—quite the opposite. They are doing their absolute best, despite all the challenges that they face, which I hope to outline in what is left of my speech. It is clear that schools can play a vital role in supporting pupils’ mental health, given that they provide routine and structure to those in their daily care. However, as the need increases, it is clear that the existing provision, which in itself varies, is inadequate in meeting the need from not just a quantitative perspective, but a quality one.

Access to school counsellors may well be an integral part of ensuring that young people have access to support, but only if a school can afford to purchase the school counsellor. Most of my local secondary schools are in some form of academy trust and therefore they are able to pool resources and provide a school counselling service. One trust told me that, despite having a counsellor who works at one secondary each morning and one primary in the afternoon, and another secondary that buys in external support for three days a week, it is nowhere near enough. Another trust told me that it is lucky to have built up a specialist team of experienced professionals to plug the gap when other agencies are not on board. They have a qualified counsellor and a full-time safeguarding lead, but still their young people are crying out for help and, with the greatest respect to those working their socks off in schools, what they absolutely do not need is to be told there is a two-year wait to see CAMHS when a pupil is self-harming or has suicidal thoughts.

It is useful to be able to provide that support where the resources can be pooled to do it, but for a small school with a published admission number of 180, like one of the primary schools I reached out to, the funding is simply not available. If anyone thinks that there is not an acute need in primary schools for wellbeing support services, they are fools. I have heard as many stories of self-harm, suicidal thoughts and depression in our younger age groups as I have in secondary. But if they cannot afford a counsellor or a family liaison officer, they are left to rely on a mental health lead, which is basically a teacher still doing their job and all the things required on a curriculum, but having completed an online learning course. That course qualifies them to deal with mental health conditions as much as my FA level 1 coaching badge qualifies me to manage England.

I applaud the Government focus on this issue in guidance and, of course, the increase in funding for mental health services, but the sad truth is that more is needed. First, we need ringfenced funding. One head said to me that

“if you put additional funding into our budgets it would get lost so whilst I hate this process, look at a ring fenced amount for the next 5 years to allow us to specifically fund mental health provision in schools”.

Secondly, as suggested by one of my local schools, the training of mental health first aid should be mandatory in schools. They legally have to provide physical first aiders; why is it not the same with mental health? The training needs to be funded and not just the preserve of schools that can pay £300 per person and release staff for two days of training.

Thirdly, the Government need to fund the provision of curriculum resources to adequately teach mental health and wellbeing skills. As a strong advocate of the benefit of mindfulness in schools, I believe that the welcome but patchy initiatives that help to support wellbeing while building resilience should become standard, funded practice. It does not have to be mindfulness—one of my schools has a pat-a-dog, which has had a remarkable impact on student wellbeing—but aligning mental health and wellbeing to the curriculum, as we do with physical education, would be enormously positive.

We need to reflect on the role of designated mental health lead. I am afraid my local schools think that although it was designed with good intentions, it will end up like the role of designated safeguarding lead, which is done by a teacher, usually someone on the senior leadership team who, by the nature of their position, already has significant responsibility.

Finally, it is clear that schools are really good places to host hubs for wellbeing, so why not capitalize on that view and ensure that each cluster of schools has access to a mental health worker, a social worker, a school nurse and even a police community support officer, to deliver resource right into the heart of the community, for the most vulnerable within it?

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech and I agree with pretty much everything she is saying. On hubs, does she agree that some children and young people will not feel comfortable and will not want to access services through their school, for a variety of reasons? Community-based mental health support hubs that are a one-stop-shop for a variety of services are an essential complement to school-based counselling services.

[Tracey Crouch]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. We need to reduce the stigma around mental health and give people the confidence to access support services wherever they are, whether that is in a school or a community hub.

It is clear that we stand on the edge of a young people’s mental health crisis, and more so because of covid, but it could also be that because of covid we have the chance to make fundamental change rather than minor tweaks here or there. I have a great deal of respect for the Minister and know that he will hear what colleagues say this afternoon. I hope he will go back to the Department, gather together all the relevant stakeholders to urgently review provision in the light of the increasing need, and then propose radical reform to support better in-house provision, because it takes less than a few minutes of listening to teachers in our constituencies to understand how urgently that is needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) on securing this important debate. I rise to speak both as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on youth affairs and as the Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central, which has significant challenges due to multiple deprivation factors in our city and the high levels of young people in care—more than 1,000—which mean that our schools and colleges have a vital counselling and safeguarding role. That underpins our ambitions to give our young people the best opportunities to achieve and fulfil their potential.

However, support for care leavers and those who live independently is inconsistent and a high-risk area. These young people are vulnerable, as well as being high-risk for mental health issues. Young people’s mental health issues impact educational outcomes and the ability to form friendships. Problems can last into adulthood, affecting life chances and physical health.

In Stoke-on-Trent, CAMHS is overstretched and cannot meet the demands across the city. Students do not see the same person for any follow-up appointments or long-term counselling treatment. In addition, a 17-year-old student is unlikely to be seen until they reach 18 due to the waiting list. Services are now focused on the reactive as opposed to the preventive at a time of wide recognition that investment must be focused on preventive actions to avoid the physical and mental—and financial—cost of waiting until a young person presents with a major trauma.

I welcome the recommendations in the national food strategy about the importance of access for every child to nutritious food and healthy eating, to address the causes of malnutrition in schools and to tackle eating disorders, which recently have risen significantly. Those issues are also probably picked up more by counsellors than by other services.

This year, City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College’s safeguarding, counselling and wellbeing team received a national award for its emotional wellbeing project. I am sure the House will join me in congratulating Jo Finn, Kirsty Cooper and Claire Gaygan on the superb work that they do, which was made possible by the opportunity area funding. The college looks after about 1,800 students, many of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds. The funding enabled the team to devise a model to meet the needs of the young people of Stoke-on-Trent, rather than the other way round. The impact of that is measurable in clinical data, as well as other key performance indicators, including attendance, progression and retention. Young people have engaged with the service as it fits around their timetables, no travel is involved, they see the purpose and they are referred quickly internally to a mental health practitioner, an emotional wellbeing worker, or one of the many groups that they can attend.

Across the city, schools also take on the hugely important role of safeguarding. They act as a triage service that notifies other statutory services when they become aware of issues, as well as providing a safe space where children can open up to a trusted adult. I commend the excellent work undertaken in all our schools and colleges. I have the utmost respect for all the teachers and support staff who work so hard to provide not only quality education but pastoral care to our children and young people. I have heard many accounts of the daily challenges faced in providing such support as an unfunded or temporarily funded extra. I speak today in support of core funding for mental health counselling and safeguarding provision to ensure that those with added personal challenges and health issues have the best possible chances throughout our education system.

In Stoke-on-Trent, loss of early intervention across the city means more focus on higher-tier services that look at extreme cases involving, for example, domestic abuse, substance misuse or human trafficking. Schools and colleges are therefore having to deal with intermediate services. Locally, Stoke-on-Trent has lost essential services such as the school nurse service, which provided preventive support and guidance, and sometimes immediate referrals to A&E, particularly for mental health issues and eating disorders; “Hidden Harm”, a drug service supporting young people with parents with drug-related and mental health issues; and the STAR—sex teenagers and relationships—service that provided early intervention and support around healthy relationships. As a result, schools and colleges are having to pick that up.

The threshold for family services is extremely high, which means that schools and colleges are also picking up that early intervention work. They have the skills and experience to do that, but they have no allocated budget or time. It is an additional responsibility.

[Munira Wilson]

The hon. Lady is making some important points. When I tour schools in my constituency, mental health is by far the No. 1 priority that every headteacher gives me. I have been struck by the impact on staff, many of whom do not have the skills and experience to deal with the level of mental health problems that they face. I went into a secondary school a few days after a young person had taken their own life. Just recently, I saw a seven-year-old expressing violent behaviour and the teacher was shaken up and had to take time out of the classroom. That is why we need mental health support teams rolled out quickly. The Government’s catch-up funding must provide not just academic support but holistic support, including for mental health, because teachers and headteachers are really struggling.