Wealthier children experienced the greatest drop in their mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic, research has found.
The findings have fuelled demands from education unions for better-resourced mental health services to support pupils “across the social spectrum”.
The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health today, found that the gap between the mental health of poorer and wealthier children narrowed during the pandemic.
Children whose parents were employed, who stayed together and who were highly educated suffered steeper falls in mental health compared with more disadvantaged children, likely due to parents juggling paid work with childcare during school closures due to Covid-19.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said: “Children and young people from all backgrounds experience issues with mental health.
“The desperate decline in mental health support services both within and outside of schools needs to be urgently addressed to ensure every child who needs support gets it.”
Wealthier children experienced steeper declines in their mental health during the pandemic than more disadvantaged children, who tended to have lower mental health to begin with, the study showed.
James Bowen, assistant general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said the findings chimed with schools’ experiences.
He said: “The Covid pandemic impacted all children in a variety of ways. Some were more affected than others, and not always according to disadvantage - every child’s individual circumstances should be taken into account.”
“Schools know this, and they have been working hard to make sure every child is given the help they specifically need, based on what they see every day.
“We still need the government to do more to ensure that every child is able to access expert mental health support in a timely manner.”
The authors of the study, who looked at data for 9,272 children, speculated that excess pressures faced by many working parents, who had to balance childcare and paid work during the pandemic, were a significant factor.
“This strain, which has been linked to parent distress levels, may plausibly have been greatest for families with employed parents who needed to balance childcare against their paid work,” they said.
They added: “Moreover, the intense pressures and increased risk of Covid infection faced by essential (key) workers in this period may have placed further strain on some families with employed parents.”
Tom Madders, director of campaigns at children’s mental health charity YoungMinds, said the pandemic had “exposed the vital role schools play in the mental wellbeing of pupils and the importance of timely support for all young people”.
He called on the government to commit to rolling out mental health support teams to all schools by 2028, “so that any young person, regardless of their background, can access help when they need it”.
The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.
