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<p>Schools and colleges have an important role to play in supporting the wellbeing
and mental health of their students.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>To help them do
this effectively, we recently published a blueprint for school counselling services,
which provides schools with practical, evidence-based advice informed by experts on
how to deliver high-quality school based counselling. This is available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/416326/Counselling_in_schools_-240315.pdf"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/416326/Counselling_in_schools_-240315.pdf</a>.</p><p>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>At the same time, the PSHE Association published guidance,
funded by the Department for Education, on providing age-appropriate teaching about
mental health problems. This guidance can be found at: <a href="https://www.pshe-association.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?ID=1435"
target="_blank">https://www.pshe-association.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?ID=1435</a>.
They will also be publishing a set of lesson plans spanning key stage 1 to key stage
4 which will be available for schools to use by September 2015.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>We
expect that schools will want to use these and other resources to develop the support
that they provide. We will continue to work with the sector to look at what further
information and support might be helpful.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>We know that
many schools already provide their pupils with support such as counselling and play
an important role in enabling access to child and adolescent mental health services
(CAMHS). Teachers, however, are not mental health professionals and it is important
that students can get swift access to specialist mental health support where needed.
The recent ‘Future in Mind’ report set out our ambitions for improving care over the
next five years, including on making better links between schools and specialist services.
This report is available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/414024/Childrens_Mental_Health.pdf"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/414024/Childrens_Mental_Health.pdf</a>.</p><p>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>We have also announced £1.25 billion of new funding over the
next five years to treat 110,000 more children with mental health issues. To inform
future practice, the Department for Education will be contributing £1.5 million in
2015-16 to a joint pilot with NHS England, which aims to improve knowledge of mental
health issues and interventions, and facilitate better joint working between schools
and CAMHS.</p><p> </p>
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