Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Government Response to the Consultation on Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision: a Green Paper and Next Steps, published July 2018, what steps he is taking to support high-quality counselling services in schools.

We have not made a formal assessment.

The guidance sets out a strong expectation that, over time, all schools should make counselling services available to their pupils. However, the Government has not made the provision of access to counselling in schools and colleges mandatory, as it is important for schools and colleges to have the freedom to decide what support to offer to students.

We are implementing the proposals of the children and young people’s mental health Green Paper, including mental health support teams, which will support the mental health needs of children and young people in primary, secondary and further education and use an evidence-based approach to provide early intervention on some mental health and emotional wellbeing issues, such as mild to moderate anxiety. There are over 280 mental health support teams in operation or in training, with a further 112 teams planned to be established in 2021/22. We are accelerating the roll-out of Mental health support teams will so that they support approximately 35% of pupils by 2023.