The National Children’s Bureau (NCB) has created a new toolkit for schools to help them face the ever growing issue of student mental health and wellbeing.
Earlier this year an NCB and Association of School College Lecturers (ASCL) survey amongst school leaders reported more than half (55 per cent) had seen a large increase in anxiety or stress, while 79 per cent reported an increase in self harm or suicidal thoughts amongst students.
With such increasing numbers of complex mental health issues, the NCB and its Partnership for Well Being and Mental Health in Schools has produced ‘A whole school framework for emotional well-being and mental health - A self-assessment and improvement tool for school leaders.
The framework is broken down into four stages, which are:
Stage 1: Deciding to act and identifying what is in place already
Stage 2: Getting a shared understanding and commitment to change and development
Stage 3: Building relationships and developing practices
Stage 4: Implementation and evaluation