The Scottish Government’s Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027 sets out the vision to improve mental health in Scotland. A key section in the Strategy deals with prevention and early intervention and outlines the ambition that every child and young person should have appropriate access to emotional and mental wellbeing support in school. To date, this has seen the commitment to place a school counsellor in every secondary school as well as a commitment to enhancing support and professional learning materials for teachers on good mental health, including training for teachers (of children aged 11+) in Scotland’s Mental Health First Aid (SMHFA) training using a ‘train the trainer’ model to enable dissemination to all schools.
To ensure a strategic overview and appropriate links between the various strands of work the Scottish Government has established the Mental Health in Schools Working Group; Children’s Parliament is represented on this group.
There are a number of levels at which schools can address mental health education and support within a school environment. As we have described, the links to CfE connect this Back to School resource with learning about and learning for mental, emotional and social wellbeing. Schools also need to develop a whole school approach and in terms of educational recovery – supporting children back to learning after lockdown – this resource provides an essential support for that work by providing practical approaches and resources to support children’s mental health and wellbeing.
Scottish Government’s Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027 https://maternalmentalhealthscotland.org.uk/news/scottish-government-mental-health-strategy-2017-2027
A rights-based approach to recovery 