Young People: Mental Health Services

(asked on 25th April 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support young people with their mental health needs in the Stockport local authority area.


Answered by
Sam Gyimah Portrait
Sam Gyimah
This question was answered on 4th May 2016

Good mental health and wellbeing is a key priority for the Department. We have high aspirations for all children and want them to be able to fulfil their potential both academically and in terms of their mental wellbeing.

Schools can play an important role in supporting pupils with mental health issues. We want them to decide how best to meet the needs of their pupils. We have taken a range of actions to help them build a whole-school approach to good mental wellbeing. We funded guidance and age-appropriate lesson plans on teaching mental health in PSHE and have supported the development of MindEd, a free online portal which enables all adults working with children and young people learn more about specific mental health problems and how to support them. We have recently revised and updated our blueprint for effective school-based counselling, and published guidance on mental health and behaviour.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2

We know that schools are sharing practice in Stockport. For instance the Pendlebury Centre has developed training programmes and measuring tools which it is sharing as part of its role as a teaching school.

More widely, the government is making £1.4bn available over the course of this Parliament to transform local children and young people’s mental health services to deliver more integrated and accessible services. Clinical Commissioning Groups have been required to produce plans that set out how they will transform children and young people’s mental health services locally to make them more accessible and increase the focus on prevention.

Stockport Clinical Commissioning Group has led a multi-agency partnership in collaboration with Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council to develop a 5-year-plan to improve the availability, appropriateness and effectiveness of mental health services for children and young people in Stockport.

http://stockportccg.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Local-Transformation-Plan-2015-16-Summary-Document.pdf.

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