7 ways in which pupils will be helped

Government Green paper published December 2017: Children in England will access mental health support in their school or college. Read about the proposals.

Far-reaching proposals have been announced by current health secretary Jeremy Hunt in a Green Paper (for consultation) entitled Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision.

Early intervention in mental health

Ellern Mede welcomes the Government’s repeated recognition of the role of schools and education in recognising symptoms of mental health and supporting young people in accessing help as early as possible. In the case of eating disorders, this is particularly important as early treatment improves recovery.

You can read BBC’s commentary on the plans

Ellern Mede School emphasises the importance of children staying in therapeutic and supported education while they receive treatment for mental illness including eating disorders. The school is expanding its education support so that it can offer places to more local authority funded students who find they cannot attend their mainstream school due to any type of mental illness.

Local Authorities SEN needs

Commissioners, local authorities and parents are welcome to make enquiries about school places at Ellern Mede School by calling headmaster, Mr Adel Shirbini, on 0208 959 7774 By working closely with Ellern Mede’s expert mental health psychiatrists and psychologists, the school already offers the type of holistic supportive education programme the Government would like pupils with mental illness to access.

Publication, Schools Week summarises seven key points about the Green Paper which we note below:

1. More than £300m funding of which most will be spent in schools
2. £95m to train senior mental health leads to work in schools in mental health, wellbeing and pastoral care
3. £215m for clinically-led link teams staffed by ‘thousands’ to bridge between health services and schools and offer co-located new services for early intervention
4. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy offered in school; mental health covered within the curriculum
5. New working group to review and research new 16 to 25 year olds’ mental health services
6. Quicker access (max 4 weeks) to health services for pupils
7. Mental health awareness training for all primary and secondary school teachers