Programme to support young children's mental health in schools
Katy Morton
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Children from five years old attending schools in Leeds are to benefit from a scheme to improve their emotional well-being and mental health.
Leeds City Council, NHS Leeds and the Schools Forum have dedicated a sum of £610,000 to deliver the Targeted Mental Health in Schools programme (TaMHS) across 10 clusters of schools in the city.
The Targeted Mental Health in Schools programme is a £60 million scheme funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), between 2008 and 2011.
TAMHS aims to transform the way that emotional and mental support is delivered to children aged five to 13 years old. It is intended to improve children’s emotional well-being and mental health by intervening earlier, tackling problems faster and working preventatively through access to specialist counselling and other mental health services.
The announcement of the new programme being delivered across schools in Leeds follows a successful pilot of the project in 2008, which involved three clusters of schools in the south and east of the city.
An evaluation of the project at the end of its second year revealed that 92 per cent of pupils from east Leeds referred for help showed an improvement, as did 83 per cent of those from south Leeds. The schools involved also improved on their Ofsted result.
Councillor Judith Blake, Leed’s City Council’s executive member responsible for children’s services, said, ‘It’s vital that we recognise how important a child’s emotional well-being and mental health are for their education and development.
‘Schools are well-placed to spot difficulties as they arise but sometimes in the past staff have felt they lacked the expertise to deal with emotional and mental health issues and referrals for specialist help could take time.
‘The beauty of this project is that it gives school staff the skills and support to deal with many of the issues themselves but specialist mental health professionals are also available so children who need this help can get it much faster.
‘By investing early in these areas and using evidence-based approaches that have been proven to work, we are able not only to improve problems more quickly but to save money in the long-term.’
