School-based Counselling Services

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I am happy to speak in this debate on school-based counselling services and thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) for securing this important debate.

A silent epidemic is sweeping through our schools and through some of our young people. It is a wide-reaching and indiscriminate epidemic, yet we are so often unwilling to discuss it. I am, of course, talking about the mental health crisis in young people. A recent NHS report published in 2021 found that the number of young people with probable mental health disorders had been rising steadily since 2017. Currently, an estimated one in six young people between the ages of six and 19 have a probable mental health disorder. The pandemic was hard for us all, but it could be said that it was felt hardest by our young people, who were cut off from school, part-time jobs and their friends. Worse still, the pandemic and chronic underfunding of our NHS caused one of the largest backlogs of mental health patients that this country has ever seen. The situation is dire and changes are long overdue.

As children return to school, we must use this opportunity to build a more welcoming and available system for young people with mental health problems. While mental health problems can afflict anyone from all walks of life, for those children whose homes have unstable economic or familial dynamics, and when those disorders are also compounded by fear and stigma, schools are often the only outlet, the only safe place. Schools must be part of the solution.

I am sure that all of us here know someone who has suffered from mental health issues. Tragically, some may also end up taking their own lives as a result. It is in times such as these that we are often forced to ask ourselves: what if we had known sooner; what if they had got the support they needed. That is the essence of what I am putting forward today? What if we tackle mental health complications early? No child should be left to begin their life with baggage—a weight to bear for the rest of their lives. Schools provide us with unparalleled access into the minds of still developing young people and it is here that we can really make a difference.

The current system to tackle young mental health concerns is outdated. A 2014 report by the Health Committee found that the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services has a complex funding arrangement and a tier-based model that fails to truly integrate the range of organisations tasked with safeguarding young people. We must show that we have listened to those families who have struggled to access mental health support during the pandemic, when pressures on children and families were at an all-time high.

While I welcome the Government’s plan to expand mental health provisions in schools, progress is painfully slow. I also fear that their current solution of increasing mental health support teams creates a “missing middle” of children who would not qualify for CAMHS, but whose needs are too complex for MHSTs. Yet again, the Government have put forward a plan that is unambitious and riddled with holes. We need a system that is more straightforward and co-operative and that supports all needs.

Employing counsellors in every school could be a viable solution to this, and it is an extremely popular measure among the public, especially those with children under the age of 18. Only around 61% of schools and colleges in England offer counselling services, more often than not run by under-qualified counsellors. That is not good enough. Concerns about the number of trained counsellors in schools and whether they are mandatory should be addressed by the Government.

Citizens UK has estimated that hiring the required 13,394 fully trained, school-based British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy accredited counsellors would cost only £554 million a year. That compares with the £1.4 billion per year currently spent on CAMHS. School counsellors in every school would centralise services, reaching the “missing middle” as well as help the 65% of pupils not currently supported under the MHST model.

I am by no means suggesting that we should spend less on mental health services, but the current unsubstantiated spending does nothing to improve services. We need focused care that identifies the problem, communicates with students in the most appropriate way and co-operates with all local institutions.

For far too long, mental health services have been shunted to the back of the queue and not taken seriously. I was shocked to discover that, when questioned in July, the former Health Minister, the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), revealed that counselling services for schools were not yet mandatory and she did not indicate any plan to make mental health services mandatory. Instead, she indicated that schools should be given the “freedom to decide”. The mental health of our children is not a subject for party dogma over freedom. Would any responsible parent send their child to school without someone who is, at the very least, first aid trained with a first aid kit to hand. If their child then fell over in the playground or had an allergic reaction, they would hope that someone would be there to help them, so why should mental health be any different?

What I, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East, and I think all of us in the Chamber are advocating is this: a safe environment for young people where mental health is no longer the unknown or unaccounted for. If we are ever to achieve genuine parity of esteem, that is the very least we should be doing.