By Gavin Mackintosh-
Spending data on mental health for school pupils is hampering the plan to support pupils in need across the Uk, to the Uk’s government’s spending watchdog has warned.
The National Audit Office found that cross-government working on the issue of child and adolescent mental health is limited by funding constraints and a “lack of data on expenditure and activity”. Mental health is becoming a serious issue in not just the British society, but across several societies in the world. Multiple adults suffer from mental health issues, making it a crucial matter of urgency to address mental health at schools.
Most schools in England provide some form of mental health support to pupils, but plans to add mental health studies to the academic curriculum will not happen until 2020. According to a survey of 2,780 schools conducted last year, 84 per cent of secondary schools and 56 per cent of primaries provide counselling services, while 71 per cent of secondary schools and 63 per cent of primaries provide some form of educational psychological support.
Mental health support teams are due to bridge the gap between education and health services, and funding for mental health leads in secondary schools, The Eye Of Media.Com has heard. Children’s mental health needs to be well guarded. The social and emotional well being of primary and secondary school pupils is very important and requires great skill and expertise to discover. Guarding the social and emotional well being of a pupil does not mean allowing them to run riots without discipline, but it means being aware of any issues that could be greatly affecting their emotional well being.
In a report released today on improving children and young people’s mental health services, the NAO have expressed their requirement for the British government to put mechanisms in place to “improve understanding of spend and activity on mental health support across the system, particularly in schools and local authorities”. The watchdog said that a lack of data in this area “limits the government’s ability to make informed decisions about the level of support offered to children in different areas of the country”.
Support for children suffering from mental health problems needs to be uniform in every part of the country. The Education Policy Institute have warned that 1 in every 4 pupils referred to mental health services in England are rejected if the same symptoms exhibited in school was not exhibited at home. That’s because the behaviour of the unruly child at school that is different from home is considered to be more of nuisance than it is mental health.
The judgment could easily be one of error because there may be multifarious reasons a child exhibits mental health issues at school but not a home, but differentiating between bad behaviour and mental health problems is not always easy. Many times they are related, especially where the nature of the nuisance caused by the trouble child is severe and consistent.
Last week, the Education Policy Institute warned that pupils referred to mental health services by their schools are being turned away if they don’t exhibit the same problems at home. Reports of self harming by pupils in some schools is a growing problem that must be addressed at the highest level of professionalism.
Broad education about mental health issues is crucial, the wait until 2020 before it is added to the curriculum is too long. Parents and teachers can occasionally educate pupils about the signs of mental health and ow to combat it, but that can only work if the teachers themselves know enough about it. The Eye Of Media.Com is committed to ongoing research and awareness about mental health and frequently swap ideas internally and with members of other organisations to help us play our part in raising awareness if mental health and contributing our ideas to organisations and schools about this important subject.
Photograph: Tes.com