Mental health spending is not meeting the needs of young people and the “burden” of supporting them should not primarily fall on schools, a former government minister has warned.
Speaking at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report launch this morning, Robin Walker, now chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, said that “more money is being spent on mental health than ever before” but it was clearly “not meeting that level of need”.
Mr Walker said schools are “more trauma-informed or health aware than they’ve ever been before” but that shouldn’t mean that the “burden” should be allowed to “fall on teachers or leaders to address what are, fundamentally, health problems”.
His comments come after Evelyn Forde, president of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), warned that schools are having to run an “unofficial network of welfare support” for pupils.
The NFER labour market report, published today, warned that addressing the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector should be “an urgent policy priority”.
At the report launch event this morning, Mr Walker explained that the problems “need a whole system response” because “it can’t all be dealt with by the education sector and by teachers”.
And Ms Forde, who was also speaking at the event, said she was not sure to what extent the government “understands the magnitude” of the “mental health crisis” in the country.
She added that teachers have warned they are “not skilled to deal with suicide ideation” and it is the “one thing that is potentially tipping some teachers over the edge because they don’t feel as if they are able to meet the needs of those young people”.
Mr Walker said it was “vital” to have “working Camhs systems” in order “to be able to draw a line” between when situations are the “responsibility of the health system”.
He said that addressing the problem was a “priority for me”.
An ASCL survey of 1,120 headteachers and principals in state-funded schools and colleges in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, carried out in February of this year, suggested that more pupils are affected by a range of social factors than before the Covid pandemic and the recent cost-of-living crisis, with almost all respondents (99 per cent) claiming more students were affected by poor mental health.
Last month, leaders warned that schools are being left to deal with a “tsunami of pressures” hitting pupils’ wellbeing.
The NFER report published today revealed that the government is set to miss its teacher trainee recruitment target for the second year in a row, adding that addressing the crisis should be “an urgent policy priority” after revealing its forecast for next year’s trainee numbers.
A Department for Education spokesperson said:
“Whilst education staff are not mental health professionals and therefore should not be expected to diagnose or treat mental health problems, they are well placed to observe children and young people and identify those whose behaviour suggests that they may be experiencing a mental health issue.
“We are offering all schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead to support schools in helping pupils who might be facing mental health issues. More than 11,700 schools and colleges have received senior mental health lead training grants so far, including more than six in 10 state-funded secondary schools, backed by £10 million provided in the 2022/23 financial year.”
