New recommendations for improving children’s mental health
Back in October 2023, the LGA’s Children and Young People Board agreed to establish a cross-party task and finish group to consider improving support for children’s mental health and wellbeing.
Children and young people’s declining mental health is well documented and has been highlighted in numerous LGA reports, including the suite of resources available on our website.
Hospital admissions for self-harming have more than doubled, referrals to children’s and young people’s mental health services have gone up 84 per cent, and there was a 53 per cent rise in children presenting to councils with mental health needs in 2022 compared with 2018.
The task and finish group considered a range of evidence as part of its discussions, including the policy landscape, statistics, and a literature review of the evidence of impacts on children and young people’s mental health.
Using existing channels, officers and members approached local areas to consider good practice and understand what works. This included gathering case studies from Brighton and Hove, St Neots, Manchester, North Tyneside, Gloucestershire, and Sutton.
The group also had speakers from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy to discuss counselling in schools, and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner to discuss social media and technology and its impact on children and young people.
The LGA already has well-established recommendations on mental health, which include its calls for a cross-Whitehall strategy for children and young people; expansion of mental health support teams in schools; building mentally healthy schools; and addressing the root causes of poor mental health through tackling poverty and investing in prevention.
Based on the various discussions that have taken place, the task and finish group has concluded that children’s mental health is a crisis – and deserves to be treated as such by central government – and has made additional recommendations for improvements.
“We want to see ‘whole education’ approaches to mental health and wellbeing embedded across all education settings”
These include a call for a fundamental review of NHS mental health services – in particular, child and adolescent mental health services. The recent Darzi report on the NHS reflected just how little focus is paid to children’s mental health on a national level, and how funding and interventions have therefore suffered.
We also want to see ‘whole education’ approaches to mental health and wellbeing embedded across all education settings (including the early years), supported by an evidence-based understanding of an inclusive school. This should be a core element of the curriculum review.
There also needs to be a focus on the mental health workforce, and mental health training should be a core element of coaching for all staff who support children and young people.
Councils know that children’s mental health is not just a children’s services issue. Poor mental health is driven by a range of different aspects and a ‘whole council’ focus can make significant improvements for young people and their families.
So, councils should look at ‘place planning’ with children’s mental health in mind – for example, by provision of youth-friendly spaces, access to green space for young people, access to youth services, and by facilitating support around schools (see case study, below).
Levers that will become available through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will provide councils with a greater opportunity to work more closely with schools; and they should also consider the specific needs of some groups who may be more likely to have poor mental health, such as children in care, young carers, and children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The task and finish group’s recommendations have been agreed by the LGA’s Children and Young People Board and will form the basis for our future policy and lobbying work – particularly on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bills.
We will also be producing updated resources for councillors, which will be available soon on the LGA’s website.
With councils across the country marking Children’s Mental Health Week earlier this month (3-9 Feb), we hope these new resources, case studies and our recommendations will make a real difference to the lives of children and young people everywhere.
Case study
‘Restorative practice’ in Gloucestershire
In 2016, Gloucestershire’s schools were the fourth highest for the number of exclusions across the country. The council implemented ‘restorative practice’ pilots across children’s services and extended this to two schools.
The secondary school involved reduced its suspensions by 54 per cent in the first year and increased overall attendance by 1.3 per cent, while the primary school reduced suspensions by 82 per cent and increased overall attendance by 1.5 per cent.
In 2017, the impact of ‘adverse childhood experiences’ (ACEs) was brought into the restorative practice programme and resulted in the development of trauma-informed relational approaches that schools picked up, leading to improvements in attendance, inclusion and relationships across the school environment.
Now the programme is supported by a team of six in the council’s education department who run a series of training programmes to support schools to develop a ‘whole school’ approach to relational and restorative practice.
More than 70 schools have taken part, with 45 schools going through the relational schools programme. The schools adopting this approach have found that the children in their care feel safe, heard, happy, and say they have a trusted adult to whom they can talk. The school environment is also calmer.
This is leading to improved teacher retention, with reduced absences because of work-related stress, and improved feedback from staff on their desire to stay within the profession. Ultimately, this has all resulted in improved mental health among both the children and staff.
- See more on the LGA’s Children’s Mental Health Task and Finish Group’s recommendations and case studies of council good practice.