Children and Young People: Mental Illness

(asked on 22nd March 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure teachers in schools are able to identify (a) eating disorders, (b) anxiety, and (c) depression in children and young people.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 27th March 2018

The Government has taken action to improve the knowledge school staff have about mental health. The Department of Health and Social Care is funding Mental Health First Aid training to all secondary schools, and has committed to offering training in mental health awareness to every primary school during this Parliament. In addition the Government has funded MindEd, a free online portal that provides training for all adults working with children and young people about mental health problems. The Department will also be updating its Mental Health and Behaviour guidance later this year, which provides advice to schools on how to identify pupils who need additional support.

The green paper Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision sets out proposals to improve support for schools to identify those pupils who need mental health support, backed with over £300 million in funding.

The Government is incentivising schools to put in place a Designated Senior Lead for mental health by providing training on how to promote and support good mental health and wellbeing and to identify where a pupil might have a mental health issue. The lead will be supported by new, clinically-supervised Mental Health Support Teams based in or near schools, which will provide support for those with mild to moderate needs, and better links to specialist NHS services for those who need them.

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