This month the Department for Education published a report on its research initiative, which examined two extensive trials of school-based mental health interventions in England.
You may have missed this among the various Ofsted and RISE-related news but the findings need to be heard because the research delivered a clear message: piecemeal, “dropped in” mental health programmes do not work.
Worse still, they can leave young people more aware of their struggles without giving them the tools to manage them, ultimately doing more harm than good.
Warnings over wellbeing initiatives
The study examined two widely used interventions - Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM) and The Mental Health and High School Curriculum Guide (The Guide) - tracking their impact on more than 12,000 students across 153 schools.
While both programmes aimed to improve mental health awareness and help-seeking behaviours, they also had unintended consequences.
YAM, for example, was linked to an increase in emotional difficulties in the long term, particularly in schools with little existing mental health provision.
The Guide initially improved students’ willingness to seek help. However, a year later, those who had taken part reported greater emotional struggles and lower life satisfaction than their peers. Given this, the DfE research said neither programme could be recommended.
What this research exposes, in no uncertain terms, is the flaw in viewing mental health as something that can be “fixed” by an occasional intervention.
Raising awareness is not the same as providing support. Schools cannot simply parachute in a mental health programme for a term and expect it to make a lasting difference.
There is no question that schools must take mental health seriously. The problem comes when efforts to do so amount to little more than a tick-box exercise, bringing in external interventions in the hope that they will somehow “solve” the issue. Mental health does not work like that.
A few lessons, an assembly or even a well-designed six-week programme cannot replace the need for a school-wide, embedded approach. The research highlights three key risks with these short-term solutions:
- They make students more aware of problems without equipping them with long-term solutions. A programme that encourages students to recognise symptoms of anxiety or depression but does not give them sustained strategies for coping can leave them worse off than before.
- They sit apart from a school’s wider approach to pastoral care. Mental health awareness should not be an occasional project but part of the everyday life of the school, woven into relationships, curriculum and support structures.
- They fail to build something lasting. A school that relies on interventions alone is always starting from scratch. Without a clear, long-term strategy, every new programme is just another isolated attempt at addressing a much deeper issue.
The need for a whole-school strategy
None of this means that schools should step back from supporting students’ mental health. Quite the opposite. What this study makes clear is that mental health cannot be treated as an add-on. It must be at the centre of how a school operates.
That means:
- A whole-school approach where mental health is integrated into the culture, curriculum and daily interactions between students and staff. Schools that do this well do not rely on outside interventions to fill the gaps; they build systems of support from within.
- Training staff to play a central role in supporting students. External programmes will always have a role to play, but they must work alongside, not instead of, a school’s own structures.
- A focus on long-term resilience rather than short-term awareness. Awareness alone is not enough. Students need to develop the tools, skills and support networks to manage their mental health not just now but in the years to come.
The Education for Wellbeing research should serve as a wake-up call. Schools cannot afford to rely on half-measures or quick-fix solutions when it comes to mental health.
The real work - the work that makes a lasting difference - lies in embedding mental health into the very fabric of school life. Anything less risks leaving young people more aware of their struggles but no better equipped to face them.
Luke Ramsden is deputy head of an independent school and chair of trustees for the
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