During the 1990s, government ministers frequently expressed concern about the physical health of children and the number who were obese well before adulthood. Jamie Oliver was recruited to revolutionise school food and a big improvement in meals occurred, although child obesity goes well beyond what they eat for school lunch.

As general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) at the time, I supported this policy, but I frequently said to government ministers and officials: ‘School leaders share your concern about the poor physical health of many children, but I have to tell you that they are much more concerned about young people’s mental health.’

So it is welcome that the prime minister has said that she ‘wants to employ the power of government to transform the way we deal with mental health problems right across society, and at every stage of life.’

The first of the six areas of mental health provision mentioned by Theresa May was young people, ‘because we know that mental illness too often starts in childhood and that when left untreated, it can blight lives, and become entrenched.’

She cited the statistics on the increase in children self-harming, the pressures of social media and the large number of children who experience cyber-bullying.  

The proposals are to:

• offer mental health first aid training for teachers and staff to help them;
• trial approaches to ensure schools work closer together with local NHS services to provide dedicated children and young people’s mental health services;
• ask the Care Quality Commission and Ofsted to review what is working, and what is not;
• consider how CQC and Ofsted joint inspections can ensure child and adolescent mental health services are properly held to account for performance;
• produce a green paper on children and young people’s mental health;
• reduce to zero by 2021 the number of children who are sent away from their local area to be treated for a general mental health condition.

Specialist mental health services 

As Malcolm Trobe, ASCL interim general secretary, pointed out, however, the biggest problem faced by schools is accessing the specialist services that the children need. Schools do their best to support young people with mental health problems - and many schools have acquired a good deal of experience in this - but they face major difficulties in referring young people to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). A survey in 2016 by ASCL and the National Children’s Bureau found an increasing number of mental health issues among young people and a serious gap in specialist care outside school.

‘The government’s plans have to be backed up with the funding needed to better support the provision of mental health services both in and outside school,’ Malcolm Trobe rightly said.

This concern was echoed by Emily Frith of the Education Policy Institute (EPI), which has reported on the state of young people’s mental health services. Among the report’s recommendations accepted by Theresa May, were better mental health first aid training in schools and a focus on community care to stop a mental health issue becoming a crisis.

However, said Emily Frith, ‘To fundamentally improve young people’s experiences of care the government must ensure health spending, including the £1.4 billion new funding announced in 2015, reaches local NHS services and is spent effectively on early help and more support in schools. The evidence in our reports shows this is not currently happening in many places.’

The EPI report revealed a marked increase in waiting times for children’s first contact with mental health services, with some young people waiting months to be seen.

While mental health first aid training for a teacher in each secondary school would be welcome, the expectations on teachers must be no more than that - first aid. Mental health is a highly specialist area, which is why some secondary schools, or groups of schools, employ trained counsellors - posts that must surely be at risk from the funding problems being faced by schools over the next few years. There is no extra money for schools to put Theresa May’s plans into action.

Fighting an avalanche

So schools will continue to rely on third sector organisations, such as the Art Room, Mind and Place2Be, all of which have royal patronage from the Duchess of Cambridge and do fantastic work with the young people with whom they come into contact.

The first of these, the Art Room works in schools in deprived areas, using weekly art therapy with children aged 5-16 with mental issues. Through art, trained practitioners work to build the children’s self-esteem and social skills, improving their emotional wellbeing and readiness to learn.

Schools often use pupil premium to pay for this support for disadvantaged children and impact analyses indicate that this work leads to an improvement in a high proportion of cases, with teachers reporting better behaviour and lower hyperactivity among the children undergoing the art therapy.

Place2Be, meanwhile, works in 280 primary and secondary schools, offering emotional and therapeutic services to build children’s resilience through talking, creative work and play.

Many of the children with whom Place2Be works come from disadvantaged backgrounds and, like The Art Room, Place2Be reports an improvement in wellbeing in a large majority of the children with whom they work.

They are fighting an avalanche. Self-harm among young people is growing; one in ten young people has experienced cyber-bullying; the pressures on children are probably greater than they have ever been.

Children’s Mental Health Week is next month. The government needs to put additional funding into schools for this work. Schools should make this week a time to break down the stigma surrounding mental health and to give some serious thought to how best, in the current financial climate, they can do as much as possible to help and support their pupils with mental health issues. There are more of these young people than you think.

John Dunford is chair of Whole Education, a former secondary head, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders and national pupil premium champion. His book, The School Leadership Journey (http://www.johncattbookshop.com/the-school-leadership-journey), was published in November 2016. He tweets as @johndunford

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