Children’s Mental Health Week 7-13 February 2022
Thursday 3rd February 2022
Place2Be are promoting Children’s Mental Health Week which this year is from 7-13 February 2022 and has the theme of Growing Together. Information and free resources for schools can be found here.
Good mental health is important for helping children and young people to develop and thrive.
The Mental Health of Children and Young People in England survey (2020) found 16% (1 in 6) of children aged 5 to 16 years to have a probable mental health disorder, an increase from 1 in 9 in 2017 (11).
Schools and colleges have an important role to play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils and students, by developing approaches tailored to the particular needs of their pupils and students.
All schools are under a statutory duty to promote the welfare of their pupils and students, which includes preventing impairment of children’s health or development and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
Promoting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing (PHE, 2021) describes 8 principles of a whole school or college approach to promoting mental health and wellbeing which, if applied consistently and comprehensively, will help contribute towards protecting and promoting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Senior Mental Health Leads Training helps Wiltshire schools implement this national guidance and enables a DfE grant of £1200 to be claimed.
The Wiltshire Healthy Schools Programme provides the tools and accreditation to ensure schools have implemented a whole school approach to health and wellbeing more generally.
There is a range of support for schools to support pupil and staff wellbeing, much of which is mentioned here.
