As pupils return to school after six-months of closures due to the pandemic, Anne Longfield has said the availability of a counsellor in “every school for every child who needs one” would help relieve pressure on struggling child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).
She said: “The children’s mental health system will struggle to cope for as long as we are failing to provide early help to tackle problems before they become crises.”
Detailing the barriers faced by children as they return to classrooms, Longfield highlighted that some children will also find that the last six months has had a negative impact on their mental health.
“It may take time to settle in, some may be disruptive, some may just have forgotten what it’s like to be in a large class with other children or have become so used to not having structure to their day that going back to school is overwhelming. Some will be so anxious about school that they are refusing to go back at all,” she said.
The commissioner also highlighted concerns raised by campaign groups that children struggling with mental health problems may be at a higher risk of exclusions.
“I hope that schools will be very careful about how they handle children who are struggling to cope. It would be a tragedy if the return to school leads to a rise in school exclusions or in more children being educated at home when it isn’t really what the family wants,” Longfield said.
A recent study by Time to Change, a mental health initiative run by charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, warned that almost half (46 per cent) of 11- to 18-year-olds are concerned about the impact of returning to education on their mental health.
Meanwhile, the University of Oxford has today (8 September) called on teenagers aged 13 to 18 to take part in an online study to understand “how certain aspects of the school experience are helping or harming young people’s mental health during the transition back to classrooms.”
The research is the latest phase of the Oxford Achieving Resilience during Covid-19 (ARC) study designed to “investigate resilience and how adolescents and their parents/carers are coping with social isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic”.
“We want to find out why some young people cope extremely well with stressful situations, while others find it more difficult.
“We hope to better understand how psychological factors relating to worry, resilience, and social isolation affects the mental health of adolescents and their parents/carers during the challenges and uncertainties of this pandemic,” researchers said.
Around 1,000 teenagers, parents and carers have taken part in the study since it was launched in May.
It has shown that teenagers consistently report higher levels of anxiety and depression than parents.
Around 35 per cent of teenagers say they feel lonely often or most of the time, compared with 17 per cent of parents. At the same time, about 40 per cent of parents say they never feel lonely, compared with 20 per cent of teenagers.
Elaine Fox, professor of psychology and affective neuroscience at the University of Oxford, said: “It is vitally important that we include the voice of young people in understanding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health and wellbeing.
“Little is known about what factors promote resilience in times of uncertainty and the Oxford ARC study is designed to answer this question. We urgently need lots of young people to take part in the study now that schools are beginning to re-open so that we can truly begin to understand what most concerns young people.”
For further details and how to take part visit: oxfordarcstudy.com/
