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<p>Ministers meet regularly with their counterparts in the Department of Health and
Social Care to discuss a range of issues including specialist support for children
and young people’s mental health. Both departments have a joint programme with NHS
England to deliver the long-term commitments in the Transforming Children and Young
People’s Mental Health Provision Green Paper. These include introducing mental health
support teams (MHSTs) linked to schools and colleges, incentivising all schools and
colleges to identify and train a senior mental health lead, and testing approaches
to faster access to specialist NHS mental health support. The government is also introducing
new MHSTs in 20-25% of the country by 2022 and 35% of the country by 2023, funded
and accountable through the NHS. This means that 399 MHSTs will be up and running,
offering support to almost three million pupils, by 2023.</p><p>The department has
invested over £9.5 million to fund training for senior mental health leads in over
8,000 eligible schools and colleges, as part of our commitment to fund training for
leads in all schools and colleges by 2025. We announced during Children’s Mental Health
Week 2022 an additional £3 million to extend senior mental health leads training to
more schools and colleges, meaning everyone eligible to access training before the
end of May 2022 will be able to do so.</p><p>In partnership with the Office for Health
Improvement and Disparities and the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition,
we have published a new edition of guidance on taking a whole school and college approach
to mental wellbeing. To bring together information about the various mental health
support offers and training available to schools and colleges, we have recently published
a mental health information page which can be accessed here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mental-health-and-wellbeing-support-in-schools-and-colleges"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mental-health-and-wellbeing-support-in-schools-and-colleges</a>.</p><p>Since
September 2020, it has been compulsory for schools to teach relationships education
(for primary school-aged pupils), relationships and sex education (for secondary school-aged
pupils) and health education (for all pupils in state-funded schools). These new subjects
support the wider work of schools in helping to foster pupil wellbeing as well as
developing resilience. Importantly, young people will be taught how and when to ask
for help, and where to access further support when needed.</p>
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