Children and Young People: Coronavirus

(asked on 1st June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the guidance published by his Department entitled Supporting vulnerable children and young people during the covid-19 outbreak, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that vulnerable children and young people, including those with mental health conditions, are able to access the support set out in that guidance.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 9th June 2020

We are committed to ensuring the safety and protection of vulnerable children and young people, particularly during the current period. This is why education settings remained open for these children and local authorities are maintaining contact with them.

Vulnerable children and young people across all year groups continue to be expected to attend educational provision where it is appropriate for them to do so. This should remain a priority for educational providers and local authorities, including as some year groups begin to return to on-site provision.

Where vulnerable children are not attending an educational setting, we have asked local authorities, schools and colleges to continue to keep in touch with them. Our new regional education care teams, comprising education and social care staff from the department and Ofsted, are working with local authorities directly to ensure their systems and processes for maintaining contact with vulnerable children are robust.

To ensure children and young people can maintain contact with a social worker, we are providing laptops and tablets to children with a social worker who do not have access to a device otherwise, either privately or through school. We are also providing 4G wireless routers to children with a social worker at secondary school in order to support them to maintain contact with their social worker and access remote education independently at home.

Access to mental health support is more important than ever during COVID-19. NHS services remain open and leading mental health charities are being supported to deliver additional services through the £5 million Coronavirus Mental Health Response Fund. The NHS is setting up 24/7 open access telephone lines for urgent mental health support for people of all ages. The department and Public Health England have provided guidance and resources to families and schools to help promote and support good mental health and wellbeing for children and young people. The guidance can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-supporting-children-and-young-peoples-mental-health-and-wellbeing/guidance-for-parents-and-carers-on-supporting-children-and-young-peoples-mental-health-and-wellbeing-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.

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