A path to better mental health provision in schools: what are school staff’s experiences of recognising, working alongside and supporting pupil’s mental health difficulties and how can mental health leads be best supported in their role?

Abstract

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people (CYP) has been an increasing concern, both globally and nationally, for many years. The rate at which CYP are experiencing probable mental health disorders in the UK has increased however there have been many difficulties in the commissioning and structure of services who can support with this. Due to this increase in need, and difficulty with services, CYP and their families are increasingly turning to schools to support their needs. This however relies upon schools having the resources, in particular, the knowledge to be able to address this. While much literature has focused on the quantitative results of applying structured mental health programmes in school, qualitative accounts of school staff’s experiences of this were yet to be explored. With this in mind, both published and grey literature were systematically searched to identify qualitative studies conducted with school staff to explore their experiences of recognising, working alongside and supporting pupil’s mental health. Fifteen papers were identified, and secondary analysis was completed on these to explore key themes. Findings from this analysis demonstrated that while school staff believed they had an important role in supporting students, they faced barriers in doing this such as: a perceived lack of knowledge and confidence; a difficulty in accessing external services; the impact of pupil’s homelives; and how this support effect’s school staff’s own mental health. School staff cited a consistent whole school approach to supporting pupil’s mental health as a facilitator in providing this. Implications for professionals are drawn from this and avenues for future research discussed.
In 2017 the government released a green paper entitled ‘Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision’ which outlined new responsibilities for schools. One of these responsibilities was for all settings to have a designated mental health lead (MHL) by 2025. The MHL role was created to liaise with external agencies, provide knowledge and support, and, promote a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing, and as such addressed many of the issues identified in the systematic literature review. This role and staff’s experiences of coming into it and providing support, however, was yet to be explored within secondary settings. In this empirical paper eight MHLs were interviewed to explore their experiences of doing this, how they would like to expand this in the future, and what support they need from external services to achieve this. Barriers to practice were also explored. Analysis of these interviews produced five themes: (1) defining the role, (2) attributes of a mental health lead, (3) MHLs own wellbeing, (4) seeking information and support, and (5) promoting a whole school approach. Implications for professionals such as opportunities for supervision, training and further support are discussed alongside avenues for future research.
Strengths and limitations are considered across papers, as well as the researchers epistemological and ontological stance and reflexivity throughout the research.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Isobel Sophie Cone: orcid.org/0000-0003-4523-0873

ORCID for Katy Sivyer: orcid.org/0000-0003-4349-0102

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