Schools: Bereavement Counselling

(asked on 4th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made a recent assessment of the adequacy of the services available in schools for children who experience a bereavement.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 12th November 2020

It is for schools to decide what support to offer to their pupils, including for bereavement, and we do not collect detailed information on what schools provide. However, the government remains committed to promoting and supporting the mental health of children and young people. Access to mental health support, including bereavement support is more important than ever during the COVID-19 outbreak and the department has taken action to ensure schools and colleges are equipped to support children and young people.

As children and young people return to school, staff need to be equipped to understand that some of them may have experienced bereavement. Our guidance signposts further support and resources, including MindEd, which has specific material on bereavement and dealing with death and loss. Further information can be found here: https://www.minded.org.uk/. Our remote learning guidance also signposted online support from the Childhood Bereavement Network and their website, which can be found here: http://www.childhoodbereavementnetwork.org.uk/. This was supported by webinars over the summer, which reached thousands of school and college staff.

Additionally, we are investing £8 million in the Wellbeing for Education Return programme, which will provide schools and colleges all over England with the knowledge and practical skills they need to support teachers, students and parents, to help improve how they respond to the emotional impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. The programme is funding expert advisers in every area of England to train and support schools and colleges during the autumn and spring terms. The training includes specific examples of supporting bereaved children.

Of course, schools and colleges are not mental health professionals, and it is important that more specialist support is available for children and their families. All NHS mental health trusts have ensured that there are 24/7 open access telephone lines to support people of all ages. Public Health England and Health Education England have also developed advice and guidance for parents and professionals on supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. This includes a specific section on dealing with bereavement and grief. Advice and guidance for this is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-supporting-children-and-young-peoples-mental-health-and-wellbeing.

We have also provided £9.2 million of additional funding for mental health charities, including charities like Young Minds, to support adults and children struggling with their mental wellbeing during this time.

In the long term, we remain committed to our joint green paper delivery programme with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, including introducing new mental health support teams linked to schools and colleges, providing training for senior mental health leads in schools and colleges, and testing approaches to faster access to NHS specialist support.

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