Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the introduction of Designated Senior Leads for Mental Health in every school and college by 2025; what will be the resource level and training requirements for that programme; and what are the details of the geographical roll-out for that programme.

An increasing proportion of schools and colleges have an individual who leads on mental health as part of their role. In 2018, 82% of schools and 91% of further education colleges had a mental health lead.

The department is supporting the uptake of senior mental health lead roles by providing training. Subject to contract procurement, this training will be available from June 2020 and available to all state-funded schools and colleges by 2025. The precise level of commitment to complete training will be determined during the development of the training, shaped by the needs of senior leads.

Training will be prioritised in the first instance within schools and colleges selected to work with Mental Health Support Teams, which were chosen as part of the commitments made by the government in its response to ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health: A Green Paper’, attached. It will then be offered to all other schools and colleges nationally, with precise plans for geographical rollout to be developed once a training provider has been recruited.