Published on
15 September 2025
Barnardo’s, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and Place2Be urge members to support new clause 462, tabled by Baroness Tyler of Enfield, to guarantee children have access to mental health support in school.
Key points
- Barnardo’s, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and Place2Be welcome the government’s commitment to expanding Mental health support teams (MHSTs) to all schools and colleges in England.
- MHSTs work with children, parents and wider school staff to promote good mental health and wellbeing and offer early interventions for children with mild to moderate symptoms.
- However, the current standard MHST model is not effective for all children and many who are currently underserved by the MHST model, but who do not meet the threshold for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are falling through a “missing middle” gap in accessible support.
- In the last 12 months, CAMHS have closed 28% of referrals without offering support. This results in MHST’s often being asked to hold cases they are not trained or competent to ethically work with, leaving children at risk.
- School-based counsellors improve outcomes for children whose needs are not being met through MHSTs, they help reduce pressure on CAMHS and are cost effective.
- We recommend that as part of the government’s enhanced MHST offer, the workforce is expanded to ensure that all children have access to a school-based counsellor as part of the funded roll out of MHSTs. We call this model, MHST+.
- MHST+ should be part of a wider pathway of mental health support, not a replacement for specialist support services.