Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his plans to provide mental health professionals in schools include access to children and young people’s counsellors trained to Level 4 Diploma of Higher Education in counselling with clinical experience of working with children and young people.

We know that waits for mental health services are far too long, including for children and young people.

That is why we will recruit 8,500 additional mental health workers across children and adult mental health services, and introduce a specialist mental health professional in every school

We are not considering counsellors trained to Level 4 Diploma of Higher Education in counselling for these roles, however children and young people can be referred to higher qualified professionals if needs identified.