Work to protect pupils' mental health across schools in South Lanarkshire has been praised by councillors.
At the Education Resources Committee earlier this week, members of the committee heard of efforts from the council’s services to safeguard South Lanarkshire children.
The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is a national and local priority and the council has introduced a number of schemes across schools in the area.
Councillor Susan Kerr (Avondale and Stonehouse), praised the work, saying: “What a fantastic range of resources that are on there, it was really interesting to read, it’s fantastic for our children and young people in schools to have access to all these resources and early stages for tools that they can have at their disposal for mental health and wellbeing.”
Councillor Margaret Walker (Cambuslang West), added: “I’d like to thank you for the report, it’s really useful to see all these initiatives and interventions which are now available.”
Since 2010, the proportion of pupils with higher total difficulties and emotional presentations has been on an upward trend.
And the pandemic was another factor in impacting young people’s mental health.
South Lanarkshire Council psychological service has been involved in research within the local authority around exploring the impact of Covid-19.
Counselling through schools was introduced in October 2020 and all 17 mainstream secondary schools, three additional support needs schools and young people attending Aspire now have access to counselling support.
And all primary schools can access counselling through a learning community model.
Over the past year, the number of children and young people accessing counselling has increased both in primary and secondary sectors, with 765 pupils having accessed counselling during the period August-December 2022.
A range of resources have been made available for pupils including Kooth which is an online mental health and wellbeing support, providing online support to young people in South Lanarkshire aged 10-18, and up to 26 years if care experienced.
Over 1000 young people have registered for Kooth since June last year and the issues raised by young people include anxiety/stress, suicidal thoughts, self-harm and friendships.
The Blues Programme is also on offer to pupils, Action for Children has been commissioned to offer The Blues Programme in South Lanarkshire secondary schools.
It is a targeted early intervention six-week group programme to support young people with low mood/negative thoughts using CBT principles.
Participants work with trained instructors to learn to apply strategies and explore thinking patterns and behaviours. In South Lanarkshire, the programme targets S3 pupils who have expressed having experienced symptoms of low mood, anxiety and/or depression via a survey.
Since September 2020, nearly 700 pupils have attended The Blues sessions, with 83 groups delivered across 13 secondary schools.
And as part of the community mental health approaches, the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH) has been commissioned to deliver support.
SAMH is Scotland’s largest mental health charity and provides a peer support programme within secondary schools and this will be rolled out over the next two years.
As well as this, SAMH will provide additional support to education through mental health workshops for parents/carers, young people and staff and roll out of their mental health curricular resources.
Councillor Elise Frame (Avondale and Stonehouse), praised the efforts made in schools, but asked if there were any barriers to people accessing help in a timely manner.
She said: “Thank you for this very informative report, it’s good to see all the great work that has been done to help our young people, can I please have an update on the average wait for a pupil to receive school counselling?”
Officials confirmed that there is no waiting time for the Kooth programme which can be accessed immediately.
Face to face sessions are dependent on school setting and the staff involved, but efforts are made to ensure a rolling programme made available to pupils who need support.
And councillor David Watson (East Kilbride West), asked if access to face to face support is easily accessible for those who don’t want to use the Kooth programme.
He said: This is a very interesting report, in response to Kooth being available, that is an online platform and online platforms aren’t suitable for everybody.
“What is the delay in timescale, and I know you said it depends on location, but what is the timescale on entering any of the programmes on a face to face basis? Are we talking months, weeks, days? Because that could be quite critical? I think Kooth has its own place, but it’s not for everybody.”
School staff are able to identify the best provision for each child, there is a lot of range available and support can vary depending on each child.
To date, over 300 key staff have been trained in 25 training sessions, involving practitioners from secondary schools, the Youth, Family and Community Learning (YFCL) Service and Social Work Resources.
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