Pupils struggle to receive school mental health support

New figures show that a third of pupils who looked for support for mental health issues from their schools or college had problems getting the help they wanted.

As reported by Tes, the YoungMinds charity, which campaigns for better mental health support for children and young people, has released the figures to coincide with its 25th anniversary.

The figures show that just six per cent of young people and three per cent of parents believe that their is enough support for children’s mental health problems.

The charity’s research, released in its #FightingFor report, involved interviews with more than 2,700 children and young people (79 per cent of which were under 18) who have sought help for mental health problems, and more than 1,600 parents whose children had sought support.

It revealed that while parents “generally welcomed” the government’s recent proposal to introduce mental health support teams into a quarter of schools by 2022/23, they believed this “didn’t go far enough”.

The research also found that young people and parents reported barriers at every stage in their search for help. Only nine per cent of children and young people, and six per cent of parents, said they had found it easy to get the support they needed.