Schools: Mental Health Services

(asked on 6th November 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what statutory support is provided in schools for young people with mental health conditions.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 17th November 2017

The statutory SEND Code of Practice sets out what schools should do when they identify that a pupil might be facing difficulties and the approach they should take to meeting their needs. In the most recent change to the Code we acknowledged for the first time that mental health needs can be an underlying cause of special educational need and introduced a new category ‘Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs’ to reflect this. The guidance on requirements for schools to support young people with mental health conditions is covered in chapter 6 of the SEND Code of Practice.

Our most recent Supporting Mental Health in Schools and Colleges survey (2017) found that 87 per cent of institutions had a specific plan or policy in place for supporting pupils with identified mental health needs. 61 per cent offered counselling services and 61 per cent also offered educational psychological support for pupils with particular mental health needs; 20 per cent had external specialist mental health services delivered within the institution. Around half provided one to one support for specific issues. Schools also offered support to all pupils – 73 per cent taught sessions to help support good mental health, and 53 per cent taught sessions on particular mental health issues.

We will include further proposals in the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Green Paper, which will be published later this year.

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