With need at an all time high and resources at an all time low, what can you embed in your school this year to secure support, improve aspirations and help to future proof the mental health of the next generation?

I understand all too well the situation we are currently in. There is a huge variation between schools when it comes to provision. On one end of the scale, schools are desperate to help pupils, without enough money or local support to provide the help they need. At the other end of the scale, a minority of schools are still so results driven that they are not supporting their pupil’s social and emotional health (SEMH) needs unless a child reaches crisis point.

Unless the foundations of social and emotional education are secure for individual pupils, whatever you attempt to lay on top will come tumbling down at some point. It’s time education collectively adopted whole school preventative measures as opposed to just using a ‘sticking plaster’ approach. To achieve this effectively, a shift in priorities at a government level is needed in order to support our next generations of learners. Until that time, let’s consider what can be done with what we have.

Here are my five best practice strategies to get you started with your whole-school approaches.

1. Time  

The single most important thing you can give children struggling is time. This allows individuals the ability to build positive relationships with a key adult. This is invaluable but challenging with increasingly squeezed budgets and high need. However, I truly believe that this has the most impact within school and where resources should be directed. Children may not have good role models at home or their home life might not nurture their SEMH development. If schools allocate key adults or learning mentors to children with higher SEMH needs, then individuals would have a named person fighting their corner and supporting them. It is important that this person is not their teacher as a more informal relationship is required. A learning mentor may also help to avoid further intervention down the line when issues are more serious. 

2. Whole school ethos

There are many benefits of implementing a whole-school approach for children and young people’s social, emotional and mental wellbeing. This includes the prevention of possible poor outcomes and supporting those with identified needs. This can have implications beyond school environments. For example, on employability and anti-social behaviours. Children can learn to form positive relationships, with pupils having the skills to be mentally and socially healthy people from a young age.

If these practices are embedded, then the children who use them in the early years can continue to build upon skills year on year. Thus cementing and developing concepts and in turn securing social and emotional skills.

NICE guidelines

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published guidelines to support SEMH in children and young people.

NICE advocates that schools should:

• Adopt a whole-school approach to support the positive social, emotional and mental wellbeing of staff, children and young people (including people with a neurodiversity condition) in primary and secondary education.
• Ensure that the school has a culture, ethos and practice that strengthens relational approaches and inclusion, and that recognises the importance of psychological safety.
• Review the school’s policies and procedures regularly to make sure that they promote social, emotional and mental wellbeing positively and consistently. This should include making them consistent with relational approaches to social, emotional and mental wellbeing.
• Review regularly the school’s accessibility plan, medical conditions policy and approach to understanding behaviour. Take into account neurodiversity and communication needs. Also, take into account the value of trauma-informed approaches and parental co-production.
• Consider monitoring and evaluating the impact and effectiveness of the whole-school approach as part of a school improvement strategy.

and recommend that the approach should be supported by:

• having an outward-facing approach to the community and to engage with local communities and groups
• strengthening links to external agencies that can provide additional support. For example, local children’s health and care services and relevant voluntary and community sector organisations
• having shared principles for engagement between education and mental health services, for example agreeing on referral pathways
• promoting the involvement of education providers in wider local strategic decision making about children and young people’s mental health
• having ways of feeding back to parents and carers.
• Ensure that school governance structures support the whole-school approach. Ensure school leadership is actively involved in supporting the whole-school approach. Make the responsibility for social, emotional and mental wellbeing curriculum content part of the remit of school leadership (including governance).

(NICE July 2022)

3. Communicate

Get parents and carers on board as soon as possible. Work together to decide how best to support your pupil. Parents may also benefit from support in areas such as computing skills or filling in forms. Ask your community what they need. This may sound like a big ask and may be over and above what school’s traditionally offer. However, by providing community outreach and supporting parents, it will not only help individual families but will create a wonderfully caring and community based school. For more ideas and evidence of impact, read Chris Dyson’s account of his school in Leeds. Parklands; a school built on love, tells the story of taking a community in challenging circumstances and supporting the people within it effectively. This in turn ensures that children there thrive in both their emotional needs and learning. 

4. Refer

I understand that there is a significant wait for SEMH support at the moment. Therapists via the NHS are hard to come by. However, please take it further, keep records, build evidence as to why your pupil needs further support. Ask parents to go to their GP and tap into any voluntary organisations in your area that provide a buddy system or counselling. Remember that if a child is in crisis and considering hurting themselves, you can ask parents to take them to A&E to be assessed. Some schools have appointed Family Liaison Officers to also support. They may have also enlisted the help of private councillors or play therapists. Pockets of money from areas such as Pupil Premium could be used or tap into local businesses to see if they can sponsor this venture.

5. Look after yourself

Supporting children with SEMH can be very challenging especially when they are disclosing sensitive information to you. Many of us teach pupils for which school is a safe place. You may be concerned about their home life once the school day is over. Ensure that you follow school safeguarding procedures but more than that, ensure you have the opportunity to talk to someone about what is happening. Secondary trauma can be caused by hearing about traumatic events and worrying about pupils after they have gone home.

Your school may wish to adopt a supervision model to enable colleagues to reflect on what they have seen and heard. This also supports with processing these difficult situations. Similarly, you cannot pour from an empty cup. Looking after your own wellbeing is crucial to allow you to have the energy reserves to support your pupils effectively. A whole school approach to staff wellbeing is also needed for staff to have good mental health themselves. This will support them in facilitating effective practices for pupils.

It may be that your school is already doing many of these things as well as using other ideas. If so, I expect you are seeing the benefits. Please share your best strategies with as many people as possible. Collectively, we can gain momentum in continuing to shift improvements in whole school mental health approaches in the right direction.

Thanks for reading,

Lynn