Agenda item

Agenda item

Mental Health Services in Schools

Report of the Director of Education

 

This report provides an update on wellbeing and mental health and support for schools and settings and education for children unable to attend school due to ill health.

Minutes:

The Committee received a report of the Director of Education which provided an update on wellbeing and mental health and support for schools and settings and education for children unable to attend school due to ill health.

 

The main points and themes within the report included:

 

  • Mental Health Support Team (M Thrive in Education);
  • Elective Home Education (EHE); and
  • Section 19 Duty on Local Authorities to provide suitable education for children who, by reason of illness, exclusion from school or otherwise, might not receive education.

 

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

 

  • Waiting times for Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS);
  • Children and young people who had been referred to CAMHS but were not assessed as having met the threshold and the importance of them being signposted to other support;
  • That a representative from CAMHS should have attended for this item;
  • Concern about rising numbers of children being home educated following lockdown;
  • The recent report from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman following their investigation into a complaint against the Council; and
  • The important role of school nurses, Early Help and Sure Start.

 

The Senior Schools Quality Assurance Officer advised that she did not have the CAMHS waiting time figures put could arrange from them to be provided to the Member.  She advised that M-Thrive in Education’s purpose was to provide the right support at the right time, supporting children and young people in school and outlined the role of the CAMHS practitioners in schools in this work. 

 

In response to a question about suicide prevention, the Senior Schools Quality Assurance Officer outlined work taking place at a Greater Manchester level on self-harm and suicide prevention and offered to provide an update on this work in a future report.  The Executive Member for Health and Care advised that the Suicide Prevention Partnership had obtained some funding to provide training on suicide prevention in young people.  A Member advised that many young people who had committed suicide had never accessed mental health services and asked that information on universal suicide prevention training in schools be included in a future report.  The Senior Schools Quality Assurance Officer highlighted the work of the Healthy Schools Team, which preceded the M Thrive in Education local offer, and which supported schools in identifying and supporting children and young people at risk of suicide.  Members discussed some of the factors which could impact on young people’s mental health, including social media and peer pressure.

 

In response to the question about young people who were not assessed as meeting the threshold for CAMHS, the Executive Member for Children’s Services advised that the Thrive model aimed to address some of these issues, ensuring that children and young people received appropriate support, whether through CAMHS or through other services, for example, school-based support or support through a voluntary sector organisation.  He suggested that the next report on this could focus more on the relationship between the specialist CAMHS service and the wider well-being support for young people.  The Senior Schools Quality Assurance Officer highlighted the video made available through the Manchester Safeguarding Partnership which set out the different levels of support available, from universal to targeted to bespoke, although she advised that the Thrive Hubs were not referenced very strongly in this as the offer was still developing at the time the video was produced. 

 

In response to a Member’s question about the figures in the report relating to young people using Kooth’s online mental health services, Kimberley Evans from the Healthy Schools Team advised that young people could engage with Kooth in different ways, for example, reading the website or accessing online counselling, but that she would contact Kooth to obtain clarity on the figures included in the report.

 

The Director of Education outlined the details of the case investigated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman following a complaint about the Council regarding its duty to provide alternative education for a child whose GP had deemed them medically unfit to attend school.  She advised that, in response to one of the recommendations, the Council had reviewed what triggered its duty under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to make arrangements to provide "suitable education at school, or otherwise than at school, for those children of compulsory school age who, by reason of illness, exclusion from school or otherwise, may not for any period receive suitable education unless such arrangements are made for them".  In response to comments from the Chair about children refusing to go to school, she informed Members about the anxiety and avoidance pathway, advising that in these cases it was usually preferable that this did not trigger Section 19 and that the child maintained links with their school with the aim of them returning to school and she reported that early intervention was important in these situations.

 

The Senior Schools Quality Assurance Officer advised that the Council’s policy on Elective Home Education had recently been reviewed and, although statutory powers were quite limited, the Council asked schools to engage with families who wanted to remove their child from the roll and home educate them and that the policy included engagement with and taking into account the views of the child.

 

In response to a question from the Chair about support for LGBT young people, Kimberley Evans offered to circulate details of her team’s offer to support schools in teaching the relationship, sex and health curriculum, including ensuring that it was inclusive. 

 

Decision

 

That the Committee will consider this again at a future meeting and that a representative of CAMHS should be present for this.

 

Supporting documents: