Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the minimum requirements are for mental health support teams in relation to (a) the number of staff and (b) their roles.

Data on the current number of whole-time equivalent (WTE) mental health workers in mental health support teams is not held centrally. However, mental health support teams will typically be made up of eight WTE staff. There are 183 teams now operational, covering approximately one million pupils in 3,000 schools and colleges. An additional 104 teams were commissioned in 2020/21, with a further 112 which began training in 2021/22. By 2023, 399 teams will be supporting almost three million pupils.

The eight WTE staff within a mental health support team will usually include four WTE Education Mental Health Practitioners, three WTE senior clinicians or higher-level therapists, 0.5 WTE team manager and 0.5 WTE admin support.