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<p>The government is committed to promoting and supporting the mental health of children
and young people. The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has policy responsibility
for children and young people’s mental health. We are working closely with them and
taking significant steps to support the mental health and wellbeing support for children
and young people in education.</p><p>We have particularly prioritised children and
young people’s mental health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 outbreak. Getting children
and young people back into school and college is itself key to their wellbeing. We
have worked hard to ensure that all pupils and learners were able to return to a full
high-quality education programme in September. Our £1 billion COVID-19 catch-up package,
with £650 million shared across schools over the 2020-21 academic year, is supporting
education settings to put the right catch-up and pastoral support in place.</p><p>To
ensure that staff are equipped to support wellbeing as children and young people returned
to schools and colleges, we made it a central part of our guidance both on remote
education and on the return to school. We supported this with a range of training
and materials, including webinars which have been accessed by thousands of education
staff and accelerating training on how to teach about mental health as part of the
new relationships, sex and health curriculum, so that all pupils can benefit from
this long-term requirement.</p><p>To continue this support we are investing £8 million
in the Wellbeing for Education Return programme, which will provide schools and colleges
all over England with the knowledge and practical skills they need to support teachers,
students and parents, to help improve how they respond to the emotional impact of
the COVID-19 outbreak. The programme is funding expert advisers in every area of England
to train and support schools and colleges during the autumn and spring terms. Further
information about the Wellbeing for Education Return programme is available at:<br><a
href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wellbeing-for-education-return-grant-s31-grant-determination-letter"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wellbeing-for-education-return-grant-s31-grant-determination-letter</a>.</p><p>In
further education, the department has provided £5.4 million of competitive grant funding
through the College Collaboration Fund and 5 of the projects funded support student
and staff mental health and wellbeing through online programmes and remote support.</p><p>In
the long term, we remain committed to our major joint green paper delivery programme
with DHSC and NHS England, including introducing new mental health support teams linked
to schools and colleges, providing training for senior mental health leads in schools
and colleges, and testing approaches to faster access to NHS specialist support. Mental
health support teams are part of the commitment made in the NHS England Long Term
Plan that funding for mental health services will grow faster than the overall NHS
budget, creating a new ringfenced local investment fund for all ages worth at least
£2.3 billion a year by 2023-24. This will mean that by 2023-24, at least an additional
345,000 children and young people aged 0-25 years will be able to access support via
NHS England funded mental health services.</p><p>We are also continuing to prioritise
the mental health and wellbeing of vulnerable children, including by supporting the
£7 million ‘See, Hear, Respond service’ led by Barnardo’s, in partnership with national
children’s charities and local organisations, to support vulnerable children at most
risk of harm or having negative experiences on their health and wellbeing. Providing
additional support through a £6.5 million COVID-19 Adoption Support Fund scheme to
support 61,000 adoptive and special guardianship families and extending our £1 million
mental health assessment pilots for looked-after children until March 2021. We will
also be considering the issues around provision for children and young people with
social, emotional and mental health issues as part of our special educational needs
and disabilities review.</p>
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