Mental health in secondary schools

[Bigfatlie]

I have NC for this.

I am part of the pastoral team of a large secondary school, and I have noticed not just a massive decline in the mental health of young people (and their parents for that matter) but also, from my own perspective, the provision has progressively dwindled. This scares me so much.

I used to love my job and felt that it mattered as I performed a pivotal role in a child's wellbeing, road to recovery, etc. I have done this for almost 9 years with the school having provided zero training for me. Nothing at all. I have made it my business to educate myself, and this has been at my own cost and in my own time. In those 9 years I have dealt with more and more complex cases, including attempted suicides, and I still have not received any training, or support for myself for that matter.

I am not sure how much parents are aware that many of the pastoral members that look after your child's mental health are not trained at all. They're just people like you and me who probably got a lowly paid job at a school in order to work term time only.

What I am hearing now pretty much on a daily bases is parents asking school to provide interventions because their GP has said 'school will put something in place'. I don't know about other schools, but where I work, this means that very complex cases (neurodiversity, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, self harm, potential mental health disorders, etc), get shoved towards a member of the pastoral team who's meant to make a difference to that child's wellbeing, having had zero training, and having to balance the demands placed upon them from other aspects of school that get prioritised over mental health EVERY TIME: attendance, uniform, detentions, and general compliance.

I am not sure how much parents realise that schools are not always honest about the fact that they do not have qualified staff to deal with most emerging mental health difficulties. Quite often we have children joining in Year 7 with a history of mental health difficulties, and parents expect school to deploy a whole host of interventions. Whilst I believe that schools are ideally placed to deal with the mental health difficulties of our young people, this is simply not the reality because there's no funding and no training is allocated to non-teaching staff . The result is that our young people deteriorate, and the adults being paid nearly minimum wage for addressing these difficulties are on constant burnout mode, often developing mental health issues themselves.

The difficulty for parents of course is the fact that when they take their child to the GP, they learn that CAMHS' waiting list is 2 to 3 years, and then get reassured by the GP that 'school will put something in place'. Parents out there, you want to question schools as to what qualifications the person looking after your child's mental health has. What the interventions that schools put in place really mean. Their frequency, consistency, are they evidence based... Don't be fobbed off. Make sure they're not just paying lip service, because from where I am standing, that's all that's on offer right now.

My daughter really struggled last year in yr 7, the school were fantastic and so were CAMHS 'early help' who provided a short course of counselling. I think it was a new thing, and it teally helped her. I am aware of other children who are getting help too. So if it's rare in other schools that's a real shame.
Well done to you for doing all the work yourself... maybe you could approach your local CAMHS to see if something could be set up?

I’m in a secondary too and we’ve had a huge rise in mental ill health amongst student, parents and staff. However we have a great team of (trained) internal and external support for low level and more serious cases.
The DfE is offering a £1200 grant for training for mental health leads. Maybe you should do it? I’d recommend the Anna Freud Centre but there are lots of places claiming to offer training who aren’t experienced.
And yes, some GPS are being ridiculous. We’ve had cases recently where they have asked us to provide online education for some students. We can’t possibly offer this due to many reasons and the parents aren’t always understanding.

I resonate with this. I work in primary and I suffer with mental health issues myself, have done for years. It doesn't affect my ability to do the job but with rising mental health issues in the kids I teach, I am expected to direct any spare TA I have to provide intervention. I don't know how to support my own mental health sometimes, never mind the children I teach.
It's a bit of a shit show really

I’m secondary school support staff. It always shocked me how we were always told to provide interventions with zero training on how to do it. I don’t think many gps and parents really understand what goes on in schools at all

Our pastoral team all have mental health and safeguarding training, the mental health lead has done the course funded by the DfE as mentioned above and we have a qualified school counselor. We are also part of the camhs early intervention project so have a team of NHS mental health workers who come in every week to offer 6-8 week blocks of sessions for students... So I think that schools where it is prioritised have good provision in place.

We are also part of the camhs early intervention project so have a team of NHS mental health workers who come in every week to offer 6-8 week blocks of sessions for students... So I think that schools where it is prioritised have good provision in place.

I think you meant to say "we are extremely lucky to be part of this project and it is a shame that it is not available to all schools" rather than suggesting that other schools who are struggling to support children adequately do not prioritise mental health.

CAMHS' waiting list is 2 to 3 years

Yes, and the suggestion that CAMHs collapsing can be made up for by a member of staff going on a short course is rather insulting to properly trained mental health professionals.

I was not suggesting that the course is a replacement for camhs, the person who did it does not offer mental health support but oversees the whole school provision - she is a member of SLT thus indicating the importance we give this as a school. We also prioritise the cost of the fully trained school counselor over other spending. This is something all schools could do.
The camhs project is available to all schools in out county. Not all choose to take it up.

Thank you for posting this thread, OP.

There is real pressure on teachers to remain publicly silent on this issue - and it is not helpful.

There is a crisis.

Public services are cut to the bone - particularly mental health services.

This then puts more pressure on schools.

But what can schools do?

Where can we refer children on to?

What can we do in school, when existing resources have been cut in schools - never mind lack of training and resources being added , to deal with increased demand.

So there's a crisis. And pressure. And teachers/school staff - who are humans who care - feeling they are not doing enough - because they can't.

And it could be different.

Labour has pledged to provide actual, real mental health professionals in every school.

Not a TA or teacher, with 4 hours' worth of PowerPoint presentations on 'well-being' behind them - people actually trained in mental health - because that is not fair in school staff. Or young people.

And Labour has pledged to do what it takes to cut the waiting time to access the care and treatment CAMHS is supposed to signpost you to.

At the moment, CAHMS seems to be a gatekeeping system - not the signposting system it's meant to be.

We need this. Our children and young people need this.

We all deserve so much better.

We also prioritise the cost of the fully trained school counselor over other spending. This is something all schools could do.

We, who work in schools, know the budget and resource pressures that schools are under. We know that schools are struggling to find staff. So to insinuate that if schools could just 'prioritise' mental health funding then all would be fine is insulting. What would you have those schools cut from their budgets to fund a counsellor? Teachers? Pastoral support?

It's just awful. I recently posted a thread about a mental health crisis my own 12 year old was having a few ppl suggesting asking the school to help, or didn't even occur to me they might have resources. Thankfully I can afford to go private, I have no idea how we'd access to support otherwise

Our local area has a CAMHS waiting list of 18 months plus for initial referral- so a child with acute MH difficulties in Year 7 would not get any form of access to CAMHS until Year 9 at the earliest, however much the school prioritised MH.

The same waiting lists exist for every single support service for children - SaLT, Ed Psych, physical therapy, family support, SEN, special school admission etc. The result is that schools are having to do 18 months to 2 years of the work other agencies shoukd be doing on every possible front AS WELL AS their proper purpose of education, with budgets that are falling like a stone in real terms.

Falling budgets = cutting staff. So more and more of these 18 months of additional support (for many children per class) is having to be done by class teachers alone.

I work in a school and am well aware of budget pressures... I am in absolute agreement that school budgets are not adequate. However, it remains a fact that in our school, with the same budget pressures as all other schools, we fund a school counselor because we see this as a priority.

The issue isn't schools, it is the woeful funding of CAMHS. My DD was on the CAMHS waiting list for 2.5 years at which point she turned 18. Luckily we were able to fund private treatment for her.

Schools shouldn't have to be providing this level of support, but because of the lack of CAMHS support young people are left in limbo and schools are on the front line.

We've got 3 members of staff who have done the DfE course. So they know what they're looking for, can identify children who need help, etc. What they can't do is actually help them!!

My school prioritise the mental(and physical) health of our pupils as much as any school in the country. There just aren't the resources to be able to provide the complex help these children need though.

You are very, very lucky to have a camhs early intervention scheme near you. That does not exist anywhere near us, or we would be in it. We have a school nurse who works 3 days a week, who does her best but it's like a drop in the ocean. We try to get camhs involved but the waiting list is LONG!!! Children who have actually attempted suicide are waiting months before they are offered any help rather than just an "assessment" that deems them non urgent because they have a supportive family and school are aware. Support isn't equally distributed around the country.

Most of the running around after our vulnerable children is done by pastoral staff like OP, who have no qualifications MH and are paid a pittance because it's supposed to be a school hours admin job.

I just don't know how to say this politely enough that I won't cause offence, so I'm just going to say it.

There is a world of difference between someone who has trained for many years in the field of mental health and someone who has undertaken some short (cheap) course (over a matter of weeks - or more usually hours).

Frankly, it's insulting to let the latter group of people loose in some of the most vulnerable members of our society (children with mental health issues) and then try to tell parents/those raising concerns that this is great.

It's not.

Be honest: if you had to have dental work, would you prefer it to be done by a trained dentist, or someone who's taken a four hour PowerPoint course in 'tooth well-being'/attended a £1,500 course on 'tooth health'?

Mental health is serious.

The consequences of getting things wrong are potentially tragic.

Ironically, the stakes are often higher than for treating your teeth badly.

And yet we're supposed to be willing to settle for a weird sticking-plaster approach when it comes to our children, and other oriole's children.

It's not OK.

And it's s choice.

And, I would say, the fact that Labour have made it clear they know it's too important not to deal with properly highlights the fact that our current situation is an unacceptable choIce.

We need to stop accepting it.

Again, thank you, OP, for speaking out.

There is enormous pressure on school staff to keep quiet about this.

Adults outside school need to know how poor the situation is - despite schools doing their very best.

At the expense of what?

It's the insinuation that schools merely need to choose to prioritise mental health and they'll be able to afford a full time counsellor. As if other schools are 'prioritising' fripperies.

The reality is that when you prioritised that, you deprioritised something else.

Should schools sack their safeguarding lead to fund it? Or lose SEN staff? Maybe close the school library?

Clearly it would be great for all schools to have a full time counsellor. This shouldn't be a choice and something they need to find funding for by taking from other areas, should it?

‘Labour has pledged to provide actual, real mental health professionals in every school.’

Where are they going to find them? Are there hundreds of highly trained unemployed professionals who are just waiting for the call to work in schools? If there are, what part of the current tax income is going to be reallocated to fund this? Or will taxation have to rise to fund it?

well, maybe., or maybe it’s just words.

And the other thing that worries me about this sticking-plaster solution of sending staff on these short courses in MH :

They are intended as an 'add on', to deepen your practice in working with young people.

Maybe the training will help with fairly simple issues.

Maybe it will help you identify children with more serious issues.

But none of that is certain.

It takes well-trained professionals to spot - and deal with - more serious issues.

It is not OK to put staff in the position of being responsible for diagnosing and triaging children with sny kind of health issue.

That is an absolutely inappropriate thing to do to staff who are working in education, not health. Who are trained - at whatever level - in education, not health.

They are not health professionals.

What if they get it wrong? Which they will.

What then?

Are they legally accountable - because they were 'trained' to 'spot' serious mental health issues and didn't? Because it was 'part of their role' to be some kind of nominally trained 'first-responded'?

Are they morally responsible if they got it wrong?

Will they feel guilt and responsibility at a personal level if they get it wrong?

Should there be a legal consequence if a school assures you your child is receiving some sort of intervention and then, sadly, it turns out not to have been an appropriate or adequate intervention?

It's not fair. It's not adequate. It's not enough.

We all deserve better.

And, for the elimination of doubt, I have a great deal of respect for all school staff who undertake these training programmes, or take on these roles.

They do it for the best of intentions, in order to do the best they can, in a situation if deepening crisis. They do it because they know something is better than nothing.

And it is stressful.

But it isn't enough - and we should be absolutely clear that it isn't enough.

80% of all school budgets will be in deficit next year. They are not allowed to go into debt, so they MUST cut expenditure.

So to pay for a school counsellor, what should be cut?

SEN support (remembering SEN support is legally required by EHCPs)?

Heating? (Already minimal and affecting learning)

Teachers?

Our school nurse spends about four hours in our school a fortnight. Our (external, trained) counsellors do 8 hrs for Y7-11, 4 for 6th form. There are two anxiety support groups but that's only c 9 kids a term, max 30 in a year.

Yes @cantkeepawayforever - and what schools are measured and largely judged on, is educational attainment - rightly of course, in that they are SCHOOLS.

Didn't the Tories make some kind of promise about MH hubs attached to every school as came out of lockdown??

Allthdgoidnsmesarsraken

Well, the thing is, you can either acknowledge there's a problem, makd s pledge to deal with the problem, and then work very hard to solve the problem

Or

You can tell people to just suck it up.

Oh, and spend millions giving your mates contracts for PPE.

And, as a member of the electorate you can either be angry about the disgraceful blood-letting of funding and resourcing of public services such as mental health, then demand that stop, and vote for a change

Or

You can decide you are happy to let it go in because a. you haven't noticed it directly affecting you b. you don't have the energy to believe things could be different.

When my son started secondary school the SENCO was heavily involved. We never had any contact with the pastoral team or school counsellor even when DS mental health seriously deteriorated. One of my teacher friends was really surprised by this. I got the impression it was because DS was too complex for their expertise and there was a concern that they could actually make things worse as they didn’t have the appropriate training.

And yes, some GPS are being ridiculous. We’ve had cases recently where they have asked us to provide online education for some students. We can’t possibly offer this due to many reasons and the parents aren’t always understanding.

Schools can’t, and don’t have a duty to, but the LA can, and have a statutory duty to, provide education to CSA pupils unable to attend school full time - if the GP has requested online provision be provided it suggests this is the case. Medical needs tuition can be online, home tuition, hospital school or small group tuition at a centre… it depends on the pupil’s needs. It should begin once it becomes clear 15 days will be missed. The days don’t need to have been already missed or consecutive.

The thing is, schools are now so desensitised to the total and utter unreasonableness of the ‘nobody else is available so schools should do it’ narrative that school staff feel that they should be supporting children in whatever way is required. Even when it is blatantly obvious that they shouldn’t need to and it is SOMEONE ELSE’S JOB.

Why? Because school staff care about children and see them every single day. When nobody else will help, schools feel they must. It’s breaking school staff.