Lord Ouseley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-04-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reasons why school pupils self-harm, and what measures they propose to tackle that problem.

Lord Nash

Good mental health and wellbeing is a key priority for this Department. We have high aspirations for all children and want them to be able to fulfil their potential both academically and in terms of their mental wellbeing.

Self-harm occurs in relation to a wide range of personal problems, emotional turmoil and psychiatric disorders. The Department of Health commissions the MultiCentre Study on self-harm. This provides essential information on self-harm in the population to inform clinical responses and preventative activity. New data coming on stream through the Public Health Outcomes Framework and the forthcoming prevalence survey for children and young people will help to further improve this assessment and treatment.

To help schools to draw on specialist support where needed, we have contributed to a £3m joint pilot between schools and specialist mental health services, to test single points of contact in schools and mental health services.

While teachers are not mental health specialists, schools can play an important role in building good mental wellbeing and supporting pupils where they have issues. We have taken a range of actions to help them to build a whole-school approach to good mental wellbeing. We funded guidance and age-appropriate lesson plans on teaching mental health in PSHE – which covers teaching about self-harm; training for teachers on self-harm is available through MindEd, a free online portal which has been developed to enable all adults working with children and young people learn more about specific mental health problems and how to support them.

We have also recently revised and updated our blueprint for effective school-based counselling. This provides practical, evidence-based advice, informed by experts on how to ensure school based counselling services achieve the best outcomes for all students, including vulnerable children and young people.