Mental health and wellbeing in schools

Being mentally healthy is about being happy, being able to enjoy school or work, friendships and relationships as well as being able to cope in difficult situations. 

Over the past few years, children and young people have faced many difficult challenges brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, those who support and educate our children and young people have faced numerous hurdles.

A range of resources are available at a national and local level that promote good mental health and wellbeing for school-age children.

National resources

Organisations and public bodies across the country provide guidance, information and resources for teachers and professionals. 

Mental Health in Schools Toolkit

Transformation Partners in Health and Care have created a mental health toolkit that offers a one-stop support and resources for school leaders, staff,  health professionals and commissioners. The toolkit includes practical guidance and advice on the whole-school approach and a range of teaching resources.

Public Health England guidance 

Promoting children and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing describes eight principles of a whole-school or college approach to promoting mental health and wellbeing.

If applied consistently and comprehensively, the principles will help contribute towards protecting and promoting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. 

Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families

This charity offers support, training and resources to help children and young people, their families and health professionals to combat mental health challenges. This includes:

• Parents and carers - Advice and guidance
• On My Mind - Resources for young people
• Mental health training for school and college staff

The centre also runs the Mentally Healthy Schools website that provides free quality-assured mental health resources, information and advice. This includes:

• 10 ways to support school staff wellbeing
• Healthy and unhealthy coping strategies toolkit 
• Auditing your school and implementing change
• Mental health and wellbeing school policies
• Bereavement policy  
• Young carers policy 

Elsa Support

Elsa Support provides downloadable resources, and a range of complementary printed products, that support the teaching of emotional literacy or emotional intelligence by Emotional Literacy Support Assistants (ELSAs).

Dove Self-Esteem project - Confident Me

Training videos and lesson plans that can help students to develop a positive body image are available in the Confident Me school resources.

Crisis Tools

Anyone who may find themselves supporting a young person in crisis including parents, carers and professionals will find Crisis Tools guidance and resources helpful.

MindEd - elearning to support healthy minds

The MindEd Hub has over 400 different sessions of  mental health and wellbeing learning for education settings including Place2Be, Anna Freud centre and more.  For sessions aimed at parents and carers visit MindEd for families. 

Education welfare

The Education Welfare Service  supports schools, children and their families to raise achievement by promoting high levels of school attendance and punctuality, working to prevent truancy and disengagement from school. 

NSPCC guidance for children with autism

Talking PANTS is part of NSPCC's approach to simple conversations to keep your child safe from abuse. This guide is for parents and carers with children with autism.  

Developing Emotional Awareness and Listening (DEAL)

Samaritans has created DEAL - a free resource for teachers. It's designed to help resilience in young people and offers lesson plans and other downloadable materials. 

Junior Citizen Scheme

This initiative is aimed at giving young children the skills to deal with a wide range of emergent situations and to enable them to make a valued contribution to their local community through good citizenship. Find out more about the scheme.

Promoting good sleep

The Sleep Charity offers advice, education or support for children, teenagers and adults or workplaces to ensure everyone has a good night's rest. 

Other national resources

The following resources are also available from national organisations. 

• Boing Boing - resilience research and practice offer resources for schools 
• Children and young people resilience - a framework for children and young people, available in many languages 
• Mental Health and Resilient Therapy toolkit
• Papyrus UK Suicide Prevention
• YoungMinds - a mental health charity for children and young people
• Work Place Options - an employee assistance programme that offers emotional and practical support for staff 
• Place2Be - counselling, mental health support, and training in UK schools 
• Circle time games - activities for primary school children

Mental health services in Richmond

There are many local services in Richmond which can support the mental health and wellbeing of residents, including young people.

Visit our mental health pages to find out more.