School-based Counselling Services

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) and the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing the debate.

Young people have faced a great deal of uncertainty and disruption to their daily lives, education and support networks, with many facing financial insecurity, trauma and bereavement. A recent survey by YoungMinds found that two thirds of young people aged 13 to 25 believed that the pandemic would have a negative long-term impact on their mental health. In 2017, one in nine children and young people was estimated to have a diagnosable mental health condition; in September, NHS Digital suggested that one in six young people now has a probable mental health disorder.

Access to free, timely counselling interventions for young people can play a critical role in responding to pre-existing mental health needs and to those brought about by the pandemic or other traumatic experiences. However, Government complacency has left CAMHS overwhelmed and many schools without the necessary resources. Before the pandemic, a third of schools did not provide any in-school mental health support; recent research by the Institute for Public Policy Research suggests that as few as 48% of schools were providing on-site access to a counsellor.

I visited Downside Primary School in my constituency of Luton South as part of UK Parliament Week last week. The headteacher told me about the excellent work that the school is doing to support children’s mental health needs. However, Downside has had to resort to using its own grant funding to hire appropriate mental wellbeing support, be it a counsellor or a psychologist, to work with pupils directly in the school.

That is because of three overarching barriers restricting children and young people’s access to mental health support. First, CAMHS simply lacks the capacity to meet demand at the level at which it is needed—often long before a child is in crisis—and in a timely manner. Secondly, there is too much bureaucracy and form-filling, restricting school staff’s ability to secure mental health support for children quickly—perhaps in relation to a longer-term condition, but particularly at that early stage before the child reaches crisis. Thirdly, CAMHS is not always reaching, or meeting the needs of, an ethnically diverse and multi-faith community, owing to social stigma about going “outside” home or school for support, particularly mental health support. Expanding that support in schools to reduce stigma is a priority for parents, who would be much more comfortable about enabling their children to access it in a school setting, and more financially able to do so. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on this complex and sensitive issue.

Parentkind’s Annual Parent Survey 2021 found that 41% of parents wanted any additional school funding to be spent on child mental health services, which meant that it was their second biggest priority, while 88% wanted mental health development to be an important focus within the curriculum. However, the Government are only aiming to get mental health support teams to a quarter of young people by 2023. Will the Minister explain why there is such a lack of urgency on the Government’s part?

We need the Government to listen to the proposals put forward by the Labour party, which would expand the mental health workforce, deliver access to trained mental health counsellors in every school—which, as we have heard, works well—and deliver support to young people through open-access mental health hubs in every community. Under our proposals, every secondary school would have access to a full-time staff member, and primary schools would have access to specialist staff time shared between different local primary schools. Open-access mental health hubs would also help us to reach marginalised children who would otherwise not have access to mental health treatment.

I hope to hear from the Minister whether he agrees that a trained mental health counsellor should be available in every school.