More than eight in 10 teachers (85 per cent) in England and Wales do not have sufficient access to a senior mental health lead in their school, college or nursery, an NEU teaching union survey has found.
And just 8 per cent of teachers in England and Wales said they had sufficient access to Camhs support, while more than a quarter (26 per cent) said they had no access to Camhs in school, according to the survey of almost 18,000 NEU members
Speaking to the NEU as part of the survey, one member said that the mental health crisis among pupils was “catastrophic” and that they were “suffering immensely”, but that “support is just not available when you need it”.
It comes after school leaders warned that they are being left to deal with a “tsunami of pressures” hitting pupils’ wellbeing.
Tes revealed last month that the mental health support teams scheme was struggling to retain staff owing to “emotional intensity”, high workload and frustration with the approach and scope of the work.
Eight in 10 teachers responding to the NEU survey said that workload was a barrier to supporting pupil and student mental health in their setting.
And 71 per cent said that an insufficient number of school staff was also a barrier.
Commenting on the findings of the survey, Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU, said: “Our members are overwhelmed on many fronts, and among the most frustrating is not being able to fully support the young people in their care who are enduring poor mental health.”
Dr Bousted said it was a “failure of government” that the “infrastructure” in place is “so stymied by underfunding that young people who need support simply cannot get access to it”.
“Schools do everything they can to support young people, but this not a sustainable situation,” Dr Bousted added.
“The government must do everything in its power to support schools properly, so they can be properly funded and better staffed, and boost the ability of external services to meet demand. This is a huge task which has been ignored for too long.”
This week, three education unions have rejected the government’s pay offer.
The Department for Education made all four teaching unions the offer of a £1,000 non-consolidated payment for 2022-23 and an average 4.5 per cent rise for 2023-24.
However, leaders have voiced concerns about the affordability of the government offer after it was revealed that just 0.5 per cent of the overall 4.5 per cent pay award for next year, plus the £1,000 one-off payment for this year, would be supported with new government funding.
