Education and training services

Tender description

The Department for Education are seeking a supplier, or consortium of suppliers to deliver a national Senior Mental Health Leads training programme. This involves the development and subsequent delivery of a training programme across all state funded schools and colleges in England. The training will support education settings to make existing senior mental health lead roles effective, and incentivise education settings without a lead to establish such a role. The contract requirements will be delivered over a period from January 2020 up to July 2024. The Department for Education are seeking a supplier, or consortium of suppliers to deliver a national senior mental health leads training programme. This involves the development and subsequent delivery of a training programme across all state-funded schools and colleges in England to be delivered over a period from January 2020 up to July 2024 (subject to contract extension periods being taken up at the department’s discretion). The training will support education settings to make existing senior mental health lead roles effective, and incentivise education settings without a lead to establish such a role. The national roll out of this training is part of proposals to improve mental health provision for children and young people outlined in the mental health Green Paper ‘Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision’ published in December 2017. The training will support the mental health of children and young people, by providing the opportunity for schools and colleges to equip a member of staff with the knowledge and skills to implement effective processes for ensuring pupils and students with mental health problems receive appropriate support, and to promote positive mental health within the setting so that it becomes a key part of how education settings operate. The senior mental health lead is not a mandated role, rather, education settings may choose whether and how to embed the role, for instance, creating a new role or integrating it with existing arrangements for pastoral care to make the most of their existing roles responsible for discharging formal statutory requirements. The core training objectives are to: — support the identification of children and young people at-risk and those exhibiting signs of mental ill health, — knowledge of the local mental health services and working with clear links into children and young people’s mental health services to refer children and young people into NHS services where it is appropriate to do so, — coordination of the mental health needs of young people within the school or college and awareness of the delivery of interventions where these are being delivered in the educational setting – including by the new mental health support teams where these are in place, — support staff in contact with children with mental health needs to help raise awareness, and give all staff the confidence to work with young people and parents, — support the delivery and measurement of outcomes of interventions on children and young people’s education and mental health, — support a positive whole school/college approach to mental health, including advising on how this is reflected in the design of behaviour policies, curriculum and pastoral support, working with parents, how staff are supported with their own mental well-being and how pupils/students are engaged. The successful provider is required to: — develop the training course materials and products in order for training to begin by June 2020, — ensure training has been made available to all state-funded schools and colleges in England by the end of the academic year 2023/24, — deliver between 2-4 face to face workshops as part of the training, — provide the ability for senior mental health leads to self-assess their current and ongoing whole school/college approach to mental health, — allow senior mental health leads to develop and sign-off an action plan to implement/improve their school or college’s whole school/college approach to mental health. Allow senior mental health leads to engage with a peer support network of other senior mental health leads to support each other in implementing the senior mental health lead’s whole school/college approach to mental health.