What do you think is the biggest barrier to having an on-site counsellor in your school?

According to a recent survey by the UK Centre for Mental Health, 1 in 5 children will experience a mental health difficulty at least once before the age of 11. Primary schools across the UK are doing their best to manage this by working with parents, signposting specialist services and teaching lessons on mental health. However, there’s also growing pressure for every school to have an on-site counsellor – currently 64% of schools do not have access to an on-site mental-health professional, and of those 59% only provide access to a counsellor for one day a week or less.

Let us know what you think is the biggest barrier to on-site professional assistance. And please do leave a comment if you’ve got more to say on the issue.

  1. 74% said financial constraints
  2. 5% said lack of services available locally
  3. 5% said lack of physical space in school
  4. 16% said low priority for school leadership
  5. 0% said time constraints

Comments

Anon said on 5 June 2016

Small schools that are struggling to balance budgets have little hope of this ever happening. We currently share a head with another school just to keep us in the black and financially viable. We have got a HLTA trained in ELSA who works as a learning mentor for an hour 2 afternoons a week but when nearly 30% of your children are pupil premium it isn't enough to go round.

ANON said on 31 May 2016

I believe this is a vitally important issue which is sadly not being addressed as senior leaders buckle under constantly shifting agendas. If we do not support young minds as they develop in this pressured world we are setting ourselves up for behaviour issues and further demands on the NHS as these children progress into adulthood. Reading a report recently where senior school children are asked to support their peers seems incomprehensible to me as I with 25 years experience as a teacher in Primary would not feel qualified to begin to provide mental health advice. Government cuts in mental health support are a hidden money saver the consequence of which will be felt in our classrooms and our wider community all too soon.