Our current mental health project
This is a programme which focuses on tackling the significant mental and emotional health needs of the young pupils attending St John's Primary School (SJB).
Many of the children are from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds and many have experienced significant trauma which impacts their ability to feel safe in the world. This in turn puts them at a further disadvantage in their ability to access their learning and utilise the relationships with their peers and the trusted adults in school. We are fundraising to provide an in-house psychotherapy & counselling service. This is also a preventative measure used to teach our children and their families much of what the national curriculum may not be able to provide.
The science
The British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy have conducted extensive research into the effectiveness of counselling in schools and its effectiveness at reducing public health costs longer term. “ School-based counselling is a proven intervention for children and young people experiencing early psychological distress. New economic analysis from an independent trial (ALIGN), coupled with analysis of data received from counselling services, highlights that school counselling is also a cost-effective early intervention (Beecham, Pearce, Sewell & Osman, 2018)”
What are we trying to achieve ?
Essentially the therapy offering we would like to provide is a wraparound service for the whole school community including parents, teachers and children.
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This project would provide an opportunity to learn skills that are not taught by the national curriculum and that some children may not have modelled to them at home due to intergenerational trauma and inherited maladaptive coping mechanisms. Providing these children with the opportunities to learn how to express themselves in alternative and healthier ways is an investment that they will never lose. It is empowering to offer them a choice and it’s an investment in their emotional wellbeing that will be passed forward in their future relationships.
Just as significantly, by using targeted interventions - transferring troubled children to a separate, dedicated area - any potential disruption to mainstream class teaching can be minimized. This initiative therefore benefits all children in the school.
We know this support works – we have seen the results of our pilot which prove it.
Why we need help
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Increasing levels of children with emotional dysregulation
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Increased need for referrals to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services); however, there is a huge waiting time for initial appointments
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Increased in-school referrals to in-house psychotherapist due to significant mental health concerns
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Increased safeguarding referrals to MASH (Multi-agency Safeguarding Hub)
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The school can currently only support a few children due to the cost of the psychotherapist and other therapies. The Candlelight Trust has historically only been able to support the most vulnerable, normally when the child has articulated suicidal thoughts, but we are still unable to access CAMHS support (as these services have been completely swamped). We need to support more children more quickly before they reach crisis point.
Why this is not statutory funded
There remains significant and increasing pressure on school budgets. The most obvious area to utilize funds would be pupil premium (“PP” - monies targeted at under-privileged children) but with the lasting impact of the pandemic having already left disadvantaged children further behind and “catch-up” funding having ending in the summer of 2022 the use of PP for this project would be impractical – it would consume a significant part of the entire annual PP budget – when many pupils are still trying to catch up.
Funding requirements
To deliver this project the school would want to employ a specialist psychotherapist on a 1-year fixed term contract for the equivalent of one day per week. Depending upon the rates for these skills at the time of recruitment and the experience level of the candidates we estimate that this could cost anything between £5,000 and £10,000 for that one year.