Mental Health Strategy
Why do we take Mental Wellbeing seriously?
There is a widely evidenced decline in the mental health of children in the western world. Recent evidence suggest this is particularly profound in the UK where anxiety and despair are even more prevalent. This cannot be explained away by increases in self-diagnosis, awareness etc as there have been increases in hospital admissions for self-harm, attempted suicide and suicide itself. Parents and professionals alike are often very concerned with children’ mental health and rightly so. Resources from the state are stretched and were a child’s mental health to decline there is no assurance that they would receive the right kind of support.
The challenge for schools is that we are a place of education. We are not a clinical setting and we are not medical professionals who can assess, diagnose or treat mental health disorders. Yet in order for our children to be successful and leave us with the capabilities to flourish we must attend to children’s mental health. Equally to pass our parent test we must create a community where families feel that their child’s wellbeing is of utmost importance to the school.
Vision
There is no departure from our existing vision to create schools which pass our parent test, where children develop the capabilities to live a life of opportunity and to be a beacon to the sector. However, there is an acknowledgement that in order to achieve this vision we need a coherent plan to respond to one of the greatest challenges faced by this generation of children.
Our Core Plan
We suggest schools should all be able to articulate a core offer for responding to mental health through five dimensions. We also suggest that every school has a mental health lead within their SLT. This does not necessarily mean they need to undertake necessary training but if they wished to do so then this is available and funding too.
Clearly each school will have a slightly different spin; particularly on the SEND and wider intervention dimensions.
Our Children
We contribute to good mental health and wellbeing by providing: a safe, calm and supportive learning environment free from smart phones. We cultivate a strong sense of belonging to our communities so that children feel safe, cared for and challenged to be a better version of themselves.
Our Specific
We contribute to good mental health through a strong character curriculum, a well-planned PSHE curriculum, physical education, and a wide variety of enrichment opportunities for students to develop their passions and interests. This includes teaching students about keeping safe, developing healthy relationships, managing emotions, and building resilience. Through our character curriculum, we emphasize the importance of self-care, empathy, and respect for others, equipping students with tools to navigate challenges and maintain their well-being. Additionally, our extracurricular programs provide creative, social, and physical outlets that support holistic development and foster a sense of belonging within the school community.
Our Specialist
We are vigilant for those children who need further support for their mental health. In those cases we can offer a trusted adult, with basic training, who can help a child manage the daily challenges of the child’s mental health. However, whilst we know that some support can be offered in school we also know our limitations and how to refer on to the experts. This might mean working carefully with outside agencies.
Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
Sometimes mental health can be bound up in SEND and difficult to disentangle. Firstly, we ensure every SEND child is truly known by all those that work with them. We then work with the child and their family to offer a comprehensive menu of interventions which includes support for emotional wellbeing:
- Academic: literacy and numeracy
- Behavioural and emotional: Zones of Regulation, ELSA (emotional literacy), resilience coaching, mentoring
- Speech, language and communication interventions
- Safe spaces at break and lunch
Specific Interventions targeted at promoting Mental Health
The school can also support good mental health and wellbeing through the following targeted interventions:
- Wellbeing check-ins from a pastoral team of Head of Year, Assistant Head of Year, Pastoral support officer and tutor
- Two student welfare desks, staffed by full-time pastoral support officer
- Breakfast club
- Calm lunchtime spaces such as: The Hive, library and sports activities.
- Safe Space Art therapy
- Mental Health Support Team (supported from CAMHS)
- Deputy Designated Safeguarding lead
- Family support workers
- Hertfordshire Mind
- An enrichment co-ordinator and careers officer
A Specialist Offer
Going further, schools may also seek to appoint a school counsellor or partner with an organisation which provides counselling.
School counsellors can be organised via a range of organisations and charities, as well as via service level agreements with the LA. A counsellor can typically see 5-6 pupils a day and counselling would generally run for between 6-10 sessions. If appointing a private practioner to offer counselling services in school, you should ensure that they have the appropriate training and qualifications (p.18). It can be useful to seek practioners, who can work before or after lesson time to maximise the time options for pupils to see a counsellor without disrupting their learning.
This counsellor should not be your mental health lead and access to the school-based counsellor should not prevent a child being referred to CAMHS or other external agencies. It is important the parameters of school counselling are understood by all parties and that specialist, higher tiered mental health support is sought from CAMHS or other psychiatric services where appropriate.
A culture of information vigilance and thresholds
Underpinning our approach to mental health, should be a clear system for referrals so staff know who to contact if they think a child might benefit from counselling. Having a triage system, which maps out the other types of emotional wellbeing support available in school, can be helpful to ensure that children are accessing support at the right level. In order for this to work it is important that relevant information about pupils is shared. This will often involve accurate recording on CPOMs and interventions being recorded on Bromcom. When working to support good mental health and wellbeing, we should avoid a model which centres around one person holding all the information or offering all the support to a child. Greater information sharing and shared expertise, will strength our referrals to CAMHs and social care and hopefully will lead to a higher success rate for our referrals.
Triage should be overseen by staff with the appropriate training and experience (SENCO, DSL, VP Pastoral). This will typically be a regular meeting between these key staff with one person being responsible for making referrals to outside agencies like CAMHS etc.