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.

@illbeinthegarden

Yes and these staff get ZERO supervision offered to them. MH practitioners in the NHS wouldn’t dream of practicing with that level of need without supervision. They do the best they can and they get slated for it.

Yes @DarkKarmaIlama (and the OP), I take your point entirely.

Absolutely, @BungleandGeorge and @cansu

What also needs to be taken into consideration is whether school staff are in a fit mental state to be providing mental health support.

schoolsweek.co.uk/three-quarters-of-school-staff-stressed-report-warns/

"Earlier this year, the number of children and young people being treated for mental health problems a month reached a record high of 400,000, according to NHS data.

“School leaders, teachers and support staff play a crucial role in supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing and when we get this right, the whole school community thrives,” Place2Be’s CEO, Catherine Roche, said.

“We can only help children to achieve their full potential if the adults around the children are also in a good place.”

Half, or 50 per cent, of all staff said they had experienced insomnia or difficult sleeping.

Another 44 and 41 per cent reported difficulties with concentrating and forgetfulness respectively.

Asked if they felt, or it had been suggested to them, that their symptoms were a sign of burnout, 28 per cent of all respondents agreed.

This was most common among senior leaders – including heads, deputies and assistants – with 37 per cent reporting their symptoms as burnout, a rise of five percentage points on 2021.

The figure also increased by five percentage points among school teachers, with 27 per cent reporting signs of burnout."

@RibbonRed

Not all children who have mental health difficulties require an EHCP. Additionally we all know how hard parents fight for that document. Therefore your posts are now bordering on ridiculous. Idealistic and lovely yes but completely unrealistic in the current political climate.

Look at the ND/ MH boards, many schools aren’t very supportive in ehcp applications. Many parents don’t know where to start, nor do they know what’s available. Many children mask at school. There can be a year or more wait for first hearing, many kids have dropped out of school in that time. A kid with severe mental health needs really can’t wait a couple of years, and neither can the school

So so true... there is no where to offload this and no one ensuring the staff are ok so they can keep going! I'm in a college role and so so many kids come up with dreadful experiences of high school. High schools with over 1000 kids in are too big! The education system from year 7-11 is broken imo.

Again you are saying I have posted something I haven’t. I didn’t say all DC with mental health difficulties do require an EHCP. It is possible to get EHCPs for DC with such severe mental health difficulties they are needing SALT, OT, MH therapies. Again, I didn’t say it wasn’t difficult, in fact I posted it wouldn’t be immediate and may need more than one appeal.

My posts are not ridiculous.

As I said, I didn’t say it was easy. I posted it wasn’t immediate and may take more than one appeal. Many parents don’t know where to start which is why they should be supported by schools. There are also charities and other support available to help. You can get an EHCP for pupils that mask.

If a pupil can’t attend school in the meantime the LA have a duty to make alternative arrangements. As I also posted up thread.

I am a regular on the SEN and SN boards. I know exactly what the SN system is like.

@RibbonRed

it is possible yes but really, really very difficult and time consuming. Therefore your suggestions are not at all very good. Children shouldn’t be left to get themselves into a state whereby they are severely mentally ill. They should be able to access help quicker via the health service and not just left to fester until they’re so ill they require a legal document to get any form of help.

Yes, it’s difficult and takes time, and no the system shouldn’t be like it is (I didn’t suggest otherwise), but it isn’t going to change any time soon so the alternative is to not apply and DC don’t get the required support ever.

How do you mean propping up the nhs? Schools shouldn’t be actually doing the therapy, no. But low level intervention such as counselling and pastoral support isn’t nhs provision. If you look at nhs referral for children it’s for severe problems or people who have failed on low level interventions such as counselling and pastoral support in school. That is expected of school as is facilitating if the child needs a higher level of nhs care

Absolutely. It's shocking that so many young people are having mental health problems and we need to look for the causes in our society, rather than, or as well as, providing more highly qualified specialists.

Hint: I believe the internet holds some answers. It can't be the sole cause, but it definitely isolates young people, who are searching to validate themselves by the number of 'likes' they receive, and comparing themselves to impossible standards of perceived beauty and finding themselves wanting.

Instead of meeting in person, youngsters chat online. This does not give them the valuable social skills needed to negotiate life.

We cannot now live without the internet but I believe that social apps need to be far more rigorously controlled. At the moment, children are supposed to be over a certain age to use them, but no real checks are made.

The internet providers are not interested in making significant changes. They want to reach as many people as possible, in order to make a profit from their advertisers. As usual, it comes down to profit above people.

@BungleandGeorge

Counselling is not low level. If you do it badly or unqualified it can be incredibly traumatic and dangerous.

My sons school was awful. He had not been going to school for a long time . I was in constant touch with the school really trying my best to get him in. He's over 6ft tall. There was no way I could physically make him.

Ds kept telling me everyone hates him the safe guarding person is out to get him. Along with other staff.. we asked for part time school to try and ease him back in. The safe guarding person refused. Then changed her mind. During a meeting with the local authority attendance officer. But it was very short it was a part time for 2 weeks then bzvk into full school day.

On one of the days ds was meant to stay at 1pm . But he arrived at school at 12pm. Safe guarding rang me up having a go at me that he arrived during during the lunch break 1hr early. Another time she rang me shouting at me that they hD found ds in the toilets self harming. Told me to go get him. In the mean time he done a runner from the school.

She also told us things like CAMHS and other counselling/therapy won't take him on if he's not attending school. She also told me my child benefit would stop. She often shouted down the phone.

I was on the phone weekly to the gp begging for help. CAMHS was a vert long waiting list. Ds was also extremely aggressive to me . Smashing up the house screaming in my face . Plus his own self harming. I was pretty scared of him.

In the end I deregistered him from school it took a massive weight of my shoulders. I just could not take anymore.

We were still waiting on camhs. Filling in question sheets every now and then... then I stopped getting them. And wondered why. I phone up and they had discharged him before even seeing him . They said they had tried to contact me which was not true. So i put in a complaint.

So anyway one night I was in the living room just chilling. My son sent me a message. "Mum I love you I'm sorry for everything" I replied its ok . I love you to . Do you want me to come up. He said no. I knew something was not right. I went ti check on him and he had sick all over himself empty pill packets. I called an ambulance which took 2 hrs to come.. he was taken to hospital . He had taken 98 tablets he wax in hospital for 2 nights.

Crises team/CAMHS were suddenly interested. He was being seen quite a bit in hospital over them couple of days . Then he was having phone/video calls. Sy home every day for around 2 weeks. He was they referred to a different team within CAMHS who deal with more urgent and complicated cases.

One of the things they are going to look into is ADHD. But im so worried he will miss out on a diagnosis because it has to be in 2 settings. He basically does not go anywhere. And he's not in school. CAMHS said they can still contact the school. But from the experience I have had from them I feel like the school would put themselves out to make it hard for us.

I have lost track on where I was going with this so it's really just turned into sharing my own experience of coping with mental health issues in teenagers and issues on causes within schools.

Janglybeads, I didn't say that, I'm wondering whether schools have these skills- not in my experience and if children are missing so much education due to time away from lessons in a reflection room that half the time nobody wants to use due to standing out, then they don't achieve very good grades, what is the impact on their future life, their future mental health. My diary at 14 is a depressing read but it is a typical teen self indulgent rant. I seriously don't think schools are best placed for offering sincere care when their main role is enforcing the rules. The two don't marry well.

"We need to dig a little deeper. Why are kids so unhappy compared to 15–20 years ago?? What’s going on?!"

I like @MrsHamlet response :
"The second is the pathologising of normal emotions. We have countless students in my school presenting with anxiety. In many cases, this is simply the normal worry you might feel about a test or whatever... but it's become a huge "thing". "

I'm not convinced that the internet is that much to blame. Or rather them worrying about how many likes thru have, wouldn't be an issue if they had good self esteem in the first place.

But on mn itself few posters have good self esteem. A large proportion of mn posters have mental health issues or chronic anxiety issues.
So why would their children be any different?
Why are we surprised at the recent increase in MH issues of school teens? I'm not.

I know not what the answer is though.

Anonforthis122 I’m so sorry you and DS didn't receive the support you/he needed and as a result it ended up with DS in crisis.

Have you applied for an EHCNA?

Is DS still compulsory school age? If so, you can inform the LA you are no longer electively home educating and DS requires them to put provision in place under s.19 of the Education Act 1996. This can be provision at home, and doesn’t have to be traditional academic work if DS isn’t able to do that at this moment in time.

How do you mean propping up the nhs? Schools shouldn’t be actually doing the therapy, no. But low level intervention such as counselling and pastoral support isn’t nhs provision.

But we all know that CAMHs provision is so hard to get, that the threshold for support is so high, that things that should be dealt with by professionals are falling back on schools. When children don't meet the threshold for urgent referral because they haven't actively tried to commit suicide and are merely seriously considering it.

And urgent referral can mean waiting weeks. Of course it falls to schools to fill the gaps.

Don't suggest that schools providing what you call 'low level intervention' are only dealing with pupils with minor concerns and that the mental health referral system is working in any meaningful way. It's not.

I'm sorry your dealing with this OP. I also work in a pastoral team but I have had training. I am a mental health lead. Also there is government funding for senior mental health training too.
I also happened to have previous training in protective behaviours, solution focused therapy and also LA training.
However, I am not qualified as a CAMHS service would be and I too feel like school are now having to pick up the slack from CAMHS too. Every referral I make I warn parents they are likely to bounce back. They want us to have tried first.
We don't have counselling onsite, most parents end up paying for something g as a stop gap.
I spend most of my time dealing with self harmers, eating disorders and depression. It's so hard, because services just aren't there. There is no other staff trained to same level and mostly it's TAs picking it all up with no real experience.

@lifeisacat

Solution focussed therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that really ought to only be delivered by qualified psychotherapists who are registered with the appropriate bodies. It is sometimes sold as a course under the guise of hypnotherapy but this is nonsence and just money making.

It’s actually quite dangerous to provide that unqualified.

*nonsense rather.

I’m one of the early intervention practitioners mentioned early on this thread - part of an NHS mental health support team.
I think what we do is hopefully useful to schools but I’m aware our remit is early intervention so we only take low mood and low level anxiety students - what we offer is CBT based interventions that are guided self help.
I get schools frustrations when they have students who have higher level of need than this but we can’t take them - it genuinely wouldn’t be appropriate for the interventions we are trained in and can offer - but there is a wait for higher level support and we are there and easy to access.

@noblegiraffe i have asked previously- what services or support is it that schools are providing?

Is EHCNA similar to ehcp?

Ds is 15 , 16 in March. He did start college went for 3/4 sessions he was only doing maths and English gcse. Then he refused again something to do with a teacher in maths that make him feel scared. I was told by the college that the maths teacher has now left as there were some issues. But ds still refused . Thry tried to keep the space open for him but they had to close it in the end plus ot was yo late for his GCSE so we are hoping he can do it next year. I'm not sure what happens in the mean time .

The local authority know he's not actually being home educated. I have been very honest from the start. I'm not educated enough. I can't even do year 6 work. They also know about his mental health the attempt to end his life. I'm not really sure what happens from here

It’s low level in terms of mental health intervention- eg the 4 tiers of support with level 4 being inpatient. Tbh hats not the same as saying it’s totally benign. I agree counsellors can do a lot of damage and aren’t supervised or required to use evidence based treatment in the same way as higher level intervention