DCMS announces £79m funding boost for children’s mental health services

All primary school pupils and most secondary school pupils, dependent on different settings’ approach to phased reopening, will return to classrooms on Monday (8 March).

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Ahead of the reopening, which has been described by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson as an “enormous victory”, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has vowed that “millions more children and young people will have access to significantly expanded mental health services”.

The funding, which is part of a £500m boost to all mental health services announced in the autumn Spending Review, will see mental health teams in schools grow from 59 to 200 by April 2023, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.

This will allow more than 3m more children to access support through face-to-face services, rapid response text message services active during the school day and through the delivery workshops aimed at giving parents and teachers the tools to support vulnerable young people.

Access to community mental health services will also be expanded, Hancock added, with the aim of giving 22,500 more children and young people access to services including talking therapies and cognitive behavioural therapy by 2022.

The NHS Long Term Plan, aims to see an additional 345,000 more children and young people access mental health services by 2024.

Meanwhile, plans have been made to expand access to services for children with eating disorders allowing 2,000 more young people to be seen in the community, according to DCMS.

The funding comes as new research from childcare provider Koru Kids finds that of more 1,000 parents polled, almost half (47 per cent) said their child is anxious about going back to school.

More than a quarter (28 per cent) of children are worried about interacting with peers and teachers after a long time away, 17 per cent are worried about their academic performance and 15 per cent are worried about catching Covid-19, parents said.

The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition has called for wellbeing to be put “at the forefront” of school returns next week.

It said in a statement: “It is now more important than ever to put children’s mental health first as the majority return to school and college on Monday, after months of upheaval and changes to their normal routine..

“Whilst we welcome the recent announcement of £79 million to expand the roll-out of Mental Health Support Teams to more schools by 2023, we urge the government to be more ambitious in its plans. We need this support to be expanded to all schools as a matter of urgency so that no one is left behind without the care they need.

“We need immediate action to make sure children and young people are supported as they come out of lockdown and return to education.”

Children’s charities, mental health campaigners and education leaders have also said more needs to be done to help children return to school.

Councillor Judith Blake, chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, said: “It is vital that effective and evidence-based mental health and wellbeing services and statutory mental health services for children are able to meet existing, new and unmet demand that has built up during the pandemic to support children and young people to thrive and overcome the challenges presented by Covid-19. The situation must be kept under review going forward to assess any further support needs that may arise.”

Mark Russell, chief executive  at The Children’s Society, added: “Children make up a fifth of our population and yet they aren’t even getting a fifth of the funding.  

“Accelerating the introduction of mental health support teams in schools and colleges is encouraging, but this still means that only about a third of children will receive support this way by April 2023. That still leaves millions of children without help which they need right now. Young people have been through so much in this last year and the government must explain what it is providing for the millions of children left behind.”

Earlier this week, education catch-up tsar Kevan Collins branded the government’s multi-million pound schools recovery package “insufficient” while both he and Williamson said a range of plans including longer schools days, five-term academic years and summer schools remained “on the table” as pupils return to classrooms.