Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support the mental health of children from (a) families seeking asylum and (b) refugee families in educational settings.

The government wants all children, regardless of their background or the challenges they face, to grow up happy, healthy and safe.

While education settings are not specialist mental health support providers, schools and colleges have an important role to play in identifying and responding to mental health needs, whether by providing targeted pastoral support or ensuring referrals are made to external specialist support. The department has put in place a wide range of training and guidance to help education staff do so effectively.

The department’s mental health and behaviour guidance supports education staff to identify children in need of extra mental health support. This includes information on how adverse childhood experiences, including loss or separation and traumatic incidents, can affect children’s mental health, and on working with external agencies to put in place effective support. The guidance can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2.

The department is offering every state school and college in England funding to train a senior mental health lead, who can oversee an effective whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing. This approach should include robust processes for identifying pupils or groups of pupils in need of further support, which may include children from refugee or asylum-seeking families.

To ensure more children and young people have access to early intervention support, the department is continuing to roll out mental health support teams to schools and colleges in England. These teams currently cover over 35% of pupils in schools and learners in further education and the department is extending coverage to at least 50% by April 2025.

Further information on these programmes and other sources of support to help schools and colleges promote and support mental health can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mental-health-and-wellbeing-support-in-schools-and-colleges.