The government should use its spending review to invest an additional £100 million per year to roll out school-based counselling services, a new report argues.

The report, from the Local Government Association, says that counselling must be made available in state secondary schools and academies to help support the rising number of pupils reporting mental health issues during the pandemic.

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New education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said earlier this month that he would “put wellbeing at the centre of everything we do in schools alongside a drive for rigorous standards”.  

The LGA said that the funding would “ensure access to a school counsellor for at least two days a week for more than 90 per cent of schools”. 

“This would complement the existing roll-out of mental health support teams in schools,” it added. The government announced in March that it would allocate £79 million to support student mental health in schools.

Mental health in schools: The case for expanding counselling services

The LGA pointed out that three-quarters of mental health problems emerge before the age of 24, “so it makes sense economically to invest in mental health support for young people, as well as making a huge difference to people’s lives”.

It added that prevention activity work like making school-based counselling available to all pupils would “help reduce the estimated £119 billion annual cost of mental health problems in England”.

Councillor Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the LGA’s Children and Wellbeing Board, said: “Supporting people’s mental health and wellbeing underpins all aspects of the Covid-19 recovery and there is clear and positive evidence that school-based counselling can really make a difference to young people and complement the whole-school approach that is being developed.  

“With reports showing increasing numbers of young people seeking mental health support during the pandemic, it is crucial that early intervention and prevention services, such as school counselling where pupils may feel more able to confide in trusted professionals, are able to help children avoid reaching crisis point in the first place.

“Councils have a vital role in helping everyone with their mental health and wellbeing and preventing the need for long-term clinical support.

“The spending review is an opportunity to build on recent short-term funding to ensure that local authorities have sufficient and sustainable funding to work with partners to help schoolchildren and the whole population to be mentally healthy, prevent the escalation to more costly clinical services and avoid delaying support.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union the NAHT, said: “Support for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing is more important now than ever after the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and its resulting lockdowns, with record numbers needing help.

“We know that schools value the vital support that in-school counselling services can provide. However, this is another area where schools have to use their own scant resources to fund support services that are not provided for in their budgets.

“With school budgets hit hard by long-term government under-investment, and further impacted by coronavirus costs, many schools are having to make cuts.”

He added: “A recent NAHT survey showed that almost a third (31 per cent) of school leaders had to make cuts to balance their budgets last year, with one head specifically saying they had been forced to stop using the Place2Be [mental health charity] counselling service in their school.”