Commenting on Access to children and young people’s
mental health services, a new report by the Education
Policy Institute, Kevin Courtney, Joint General
Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“The EPI findings are distressing. Schools witness on a daily
basis the costs of the Government's decimation of mental health
services and the misery caused to families and children and young
people in need of professional mental health support. For many
parents the only route open to them is to pay for help privately.
This of course is an option open for only a minority of families,
leaving too many children without the early support so crucial in
addressing mental health.
“Schools must be enabled to support pupils' mental health and
promote well-being, but they cannot do it alone. In the majority
of schools, pastoral systems and personalised support are being
cut because of the real-terms funding cuts. Students need a
qualified counsellor in every school but the current funding
crisis is reducing, not widening, access to counsellors.
“A whole school approach requires adequate funding for
professional involvement and not just a reliance on teachers
being up-skilled. It must involve training teachers to have an
understanding of pupils’ differing mental-health needs and
include school leaders giving all staff the confidence to put
pupil well-being first.
“The OECD reports that our children are some of the unhappiest in
the world and reports show that exam stress is rising to the top
of lists of what makes children and young people unhappy. This is
as a direct result of many current education policies. The
Government needs to reverse the ‘exam factory’ culture they have
created in schools and colleges which impacts so heavily on the
stress and anxiety levels of children from the age of four
upwards. The nonsensical chasing of arbitrary targets reduces
children and young people to a set of numbers and undermines
their motivation and self-confidence. Our members are concerned
about the link between pressure to achieve unrealistic rates of
linear progress and children's anxiety levels.”
