Just Released: Talking mental health with young people at secondary school
Our growing Schools in Mind network has launched its latest activity to support schools by sending every single secondary school two leaflets – one for staff and one for parents and carers.
Altogether around 6,500 school will receive the leaflets which is part of our aim to help all schools to support the mental health of children and young people.
Last month the Government published its Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health. The document was warmly welcomed by many in the charity sector and beyond, including ourselves, and includes three recommendations that stem from our own work.
That schools and colleges have a Designated Senior Lead for mental health by 2025
That new Mental Health Support Teams are established and are supervised by the NHS.
That these teams address the needs of children with mild to moderate mental health issues and link with specialist services to speed up help when needed.
These recommendations will make new demands on School leaders and school staff and we want to support schools to meet this challenge through our growing Schools in Mind learning network.
In the last twelve months the network has grown from under 1,000 members to over 4,000, in over 2,500 schools. It means that 10% of all schools in the country are now members of the network.
Jaime Smith, Programme Director for the Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools Programme said:
“We’ve developed some fantastic materials for schools and parent and carers and the response to them has been amazing. The growth in the Schools in Mind network reflects the need for evidence-based materials. We’re bringing together our expertise in research and clinical? practice to develop a network which we hope will eventually help all schools to become wellbeing schools.”
This booklet for School staff offers an introduction to some of the mental health problems that children and young people in secondary schools may face.
The parents and carers leaflet has advice and information on how to respond to children and young people who are struggling at school.
It includes links to our Mind Media Award nominated Child in Mind podcast series on mental health problems, fronted by Radio4s All in the Mind presenter Claudia Hammond.
You can find additional resources here including previous booklets for school staff and parents and carer and top-tip videos for schools and details of how to register for free to join the network.