Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to (a) support and (b) expand (i) mentoring and (ii) wellbeing schemes for young people in (A) schools and (B) local communities.

Helping children and young people to both achieve and thrive, including through work on mentoring and supporting wellbeing, is critical to breaking down barriers to opportunity – one of the five missions of this government.

The department is investing £17 million across two mentoring projects that will support the school attendance of at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. These programmes will be evaluated and the effective practice shared with schools and local authorities nationally. The first project is set to conclude this academic year, while the second, larger pilot will continue until 2028.

To support mental health and wellbeing, the government has also committed to providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school in England.

The department has also launched a targeted mental wellbeing support toolkit to further help schools select the most effective targeted support options. This covers a range of evidence-based interventions, including mentoring, which we recognise can be a useful component of a whole school approach to wellbeing.

The government is committed to deliver on its pledge to provide a free breakfast club in every state-funded school with primary aged children. We have made early progress towards this, including announcing that up to 750 early adopters will be delivering these new breakfast clubs by April 2025. Breakfast clubs offer much more than just food. They can serve as a welcoming space for children, providing valuable opportunities for them to play, learn, and socialise at the beginning of the school day.

Across government, we are also supporting a variety of other schemes with a focus on mentoring and wellbeing for young people in wider communities.

Young Futures Hubs will bring together services to help improve the way that children and young people can access opportunities and support in their local communities, in doing so, promoting their development, improving mental health, and preventing young people being drawn into crime. Expertise has been brought together from across government departments to deliver on this manifesto commitment, and the government will be engaging with national and local partners, local communities and children and young people to co-design and explore options for the design and delivery of the hubs.

There are currently around 65 locally funded early support hubs in England open to those aged 11 to 25. These are open to anyone who may not meet the threshold to receive NHS support. This means children and young people experiencing feelings of anxiety or stress will have a physical space to go to in their community when their problems first emerge without the need for a referral. Early support hubs also offer advice on wider issues which may affect a young person’s mental health, including careers advice, educational support or support with their financial circumstances. In 2024/25, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is also running a Shared Outcomes Fund project, backed by £8 million, to boost and evaluate the impact of 24 existing early support hubs.

In the wider healthcare system, DHSC will also recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.

Supporting mentoring in wider communities, Youth Futures Foundation receives funding through the Dormant Assets Scheme, which is led by industry and backed by the government, for their ‘Building Futures’ programme with the Football Beyond Borders as their year 1 partner, which will enable thousands of vulnerable young people to access crucial mentoring support.