Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to promote mental health education in schools.

Children and young people’s mental health is a high priority for the department, and that is why my Rt Hon friend the Secretary of State appointed me as the first DfE minister with specific responsibility for this important area.

Over the last 9 months, we have funded guidance for schools on counselling and lesson plans to support age-appropriate teaching about mental health. Today the Government is launching a new campaign to tackle stigma and discrimination which aims to involve schools, children and young people.

We are also contributing £1.5m to a joint pilot for training single points of contact in schools and specialist mental health services; and providing funding worth £4.9m this year, through a dedicated mental health strand within our VCS programme, to support 17 projects delivering a wide range of support across the country to children and young people with mental health issues. These include projects to promote positive mental health in schools with organisations such as MIND and Place2Be, and new resources for parents on MindEd.