Mental Health in Schools

About this course.

Children and young people spend a huge part of their lives in school, which puts schools in a unique position to support good mental health and wellbeing. But supporting pupil mental health well is not the job of one teacher, one pastoral worker or one programme. It is most effective when it is built into the way the whole school works — its leadership, its culture, its curriculum, its systems for spotting need, and the relationships it has with families and external services. This is what is meant by a whole-school approach, and it is the focus of this course.

This course is designed for school leaders, senior mental health leads, governors, pastoral staff and the wider school team. It explains the DfE and Public Health England whole-school approach to emotional health and wellbeing and its eight principles, and it sets out the role of the Senior Mental Health Lead in driving that approach forward. It explores how wellbeing is embedded through ethos and environment, the curriculum (including statutory Relationships, Sex and Health Education), pupil voice, staff development and partnership with parents. It then turns to identifying need and the graduated response — the tiers of support from universal provision for all pupils, through targeted help and Mental Health Support Teams, to specialist services and referral to CAMHS — and to the place of social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) within the SEND framework.