A few days ago the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton who can be found on their website sent out an email that included a piece that was focused on a visit by the Education Minister, Gillian Keegan to St Wilfrids Catholic School in Crawley and she is shown with Michael Ferry the Headteacher. Their piece is listed below and they included this image. Along with this piece by the Church there was also a discussion back on the 17th April in Parliament which was entitled “Mental Health Training in Schools” The Conservative MP Giles Watling from Clacton opened the discussion with the question “What steps her Department is taking to increase mental health training in schools.” and Gillian Keegan responded to his question. Then Munira Wilson who is the Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham responded and her call was very significant. The whole of the debate can be obtained from here and there are some of the elements that have been provided.

Gillian Keegan initial response to Giles Watling: Schools promote and support the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils to help them thrive and reach their potential. My Department is helping schools to develop effective approaches to mental health by offering senior mental health lead training. More than half of all state schools and colleges have received that training grant since September 2021. To give children more access to support, we are increasing the number of mental health support teams from 287 in 2022 to 400 in 2023, and the number of teams will grow to 500 in 2024. I recently visited St Wilfrid’s Catholic School in Crawley, where I saw the fantastic work done by that school and West Sussex’s mental health support team to offer one-to-one support and group sessions for pupils who are struggling to prepare for their next steps.

There was another question from Giles and a response from Gillian and then:

The question from Munira Wilson: An investigation by The House magazine found that a quarter of a million children struggling with their mental health who were referred to the NHS were either denied treatment or redirected elsewhere due to burgeoning caseloads. I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree that schools play a vital preventive role in building children’s resilience and ensuring that the NHS is not overwhelmed, yet the mental health support teams in schools programme is due to end abruptly in 2024. Will the she assure the House that that programme will continue and reach every school in the country?

Gillian Keegan’s response: As the hon. Lady rightly says, the programme is continuing up to 2024. We are evaluating its success, and the early signs are that it is vital in helping more children access lower-level mental health support, such as group and one-to-one sessions. We will certainly be putting the case forward for continuing the roll-out of this successful programme.

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