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Last month, the Department for Education said it will invest an additional £49 million in a bid to ensure that six in 10 pupils have access to mental health support teams at school by March 2026.

The mental health support teams (MHSTs), which are made up of specially trained education mental health practitioners, will “improve children’s life chances and tackle the root causes of poor attendance and behaviour”. It cites research that links the severity of children’s mental health issues and their likelihood of missing school.

The idea isn’t new: while one of Labour’s pledges last year was to provide access to MHSTs to all pupils by 2029-30, began life under the Conservative government in 2018.

Given this, many schools are already benefiting from access to MHSTs. , as of April 2025 there were 607 MHSTs operating across England, with a further 106 teams in training and expected to become operational by April 2026.

Nationwide, this equates to 5 million students currently being covered by an MHST - 52 per cent of the pupil population. In terms of settings, there are 10,100 schools and colleges being supported by an MHST (41 per cent of the total).

Mental health support team access

But this coverage is not distributed evenly across England.

Look at the regional detail and you will see that in London, the proportion of students who are in settings supported by an MHST is 58 per cent, while in the South East it is 47 per cent.

You can see the regional breakdown per student below:

That unequal coverage is also apparent when you look at the proportion of settings supported by an MHST regionally: London again has the highest proportion with 47 per cent, while the East of England comes in last with 38 per cent. The Midlands, the North West and the South East are all below the national average at 39 per cent.

You can see the regional breakdown per setting below:

There are even more disparities in coverage when you look at the data on pupil access to MHSTs by type of setting.

Some 70 per cent of secondary students attend a school with access to an MHST, but that number is far lower for primary pupils at just 47 per cent.

It’s even lower for specialist settings, with 42 per cent of students in alternative provision (AP) having access to an MHST, and just 36 per cent of young people in special schools. These rates are particularly concerning given that many of society’s most vulnerable children attend these schools.

You can see the breakdown by school type below:

It’s a similar story when you look at the data on the proportion of settings with access to MHSTs by type: 69 per cent of secondaries have access to support, compared with 42 per cent of primaries, 36 per cent of AP schools and 34 per cent of special schools. The DfE did not respond to Tes’ request for comment on why the rollout for specialist settings has been so much slower.

The data on settings is shown below:

The impact on schools

Clearly, there is still work to do to ensure parity of access across the country.

The government says the rollout of the teams will be prioritised according to local need - taking into account indicators such as free school meal eligibility and deprivation - but the DfE did not respond when Tes asked where, geographically, this means MHSTs will be provided next.

But for those schools that do have access, what kind of impact are the teams having?

Responding to an online survey issued to schools that were part of the most recent wave of the rollout, 85 per cent of participants agreed that working with an MHST had provided better mental health and wellbeing support than would have been available otherwise.

However, only 46 per cent of respondents agreed that direct interventions from MHSTs had helped to improve attendance at their school, and 14 per cent disagreed. Meanwhile, 40 per cent of school respondents agreed that MHST work on their whole-school approach to mental health had helped to improve attendance, while 17 per cent disagreed.

You can see this data below:

Given the increase in the number of school-age children needing severe mental health crisis support, the importance of getting this rollout right can’t be overstated.

Indeed, Claire Murdoch, NHS England’s national director for mental health, tells Tes that “young people are facing increasing pressures from social media and cyberbullying through to growing up during a pandemic”.

“With 50 per cent of mental health disorders being present by the age of 14, early interventions, such as these school-based teams, are vital and can make a real impact on young people’s mental health,” she says.

One school leader who has seen the impact of an MHST is Jacqueline Valin, CEO of Southfields Academy in south-west London. She has worked with a team across a cluster of 20 local schools since 2018.

“It’s the best thing we’ve done,” Valin says, explaining that the cluster is supported by two clinical leads, each working three days a week, and four full-time education mental health practitioners.

The team works with students, staff and parents, providing support ranging from friendship workshops for Years 6 and 7 to webinars for primary parents on supporting their child’s sleep, and staff training on how to identify a child with anxiety. “It’s a whole-school approach,” Valin says.

Improved attendance

She adds that a particular area of focus is emotionally based school avoidance, which the MHST has helped to reduce - in line with the government’s aims on improving attendance.

“Attendance has improved due to the impact of the mental health support team,” Valin explains, specifically crediting the team’s outreach work with parents for Southfields Academy’s better-than-average attendance.

‘It’s massive how much the MHSTs have had an impact’

Annika Clark, consultant clinical psychologist at South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust and clinical lead for MHSTs in south-west London, says she is “really proud” that this part of the capital is one of the first areas to provide 100 per cent MHST coverage across local schools.

Clark puts the great impact of the teams partly down to the extent to which they embed into the school community: they have dedicated time to “sit in on lessons to gain a better understanding of how young people receiving support from the team are getting on day to day”.

These benefits are being felt outside London, too, even in areas where the rollout has not reached as many schools.

Shorter waiting times

In the North West, Gary Lloyd, headteacher of the Academy of St Nicholas in Liverpool, says the school is already seeing positive effects, even after only starting to work with an MHST in September 2024.

“This time last year my school was sitting around 82-83 per cent attendance,” Lloyd says. “We’re now going to finish this year just under 90. It’s massive how much [the MHSTs] have had an impact.”

As in London, this has partly been achieved by targeting emotionally based school avoidance, as well as concerns such as the increasing number of students who are self-harming, says Siobhan Riley, deputy headteacher and Sendco at the Academy of St Nicholas.

“We’ve been able to ensure that no child has to wait for something. They get seen really quickly,” Riley adds. Students no longer have to wait months for an NHS appointment or “travel to the other end of the city” to attend it, she says.

Thanks to the MHST, which is based on site two days a week, appointments happen at school, during the school day. “That’s something our parents have been really surprised by,” says Riley.

‘No child has to wait. They get seen really quickly’

Another leader who has seen the benefits of the MHSTs is Sarah Findlay-Cobb, CEO at Landau Forte Charitable Trust in the East Midlands, who says the team working with one of the trust’s secondaries in Derby offers “one-to-one and group interventions for students experiencing anxiety, behavioural challenges, bereavement or mild depression”.

However, Findlay-Cobb adds that, given the number of students requiring help, “there is still more support required”.

In London, Valin also wishes her MHST had more capacity. “I could do with a team double the size,” she says.

But considering the patchy coverage nationally, any access to an MHST is the envy of those schools that aren’t covered at all.

‘Gap in provision’

One leader who wishes she had access is Stephanie Brand, Sendco at Bexley Grammar School in Kent.

She explains that her secondary submitted an application for an MHST during wave eight of the national rollout but was unsuccessful. This means the school is left in a “challenging situation where services such as child and adolescent mental health services are informing students that their needs can be met in school through interventions delivered by MHSTs” - even though the school does not have access.

“This leaves a gap in the provision for students with mild to moderate mental health needs, whose needs are not severe enough to meet the thresholds for referral to mental health services but who require a higher level of support than can be offered by school staff,” says Brand.

As the data above shows, many others will be in the same position for several years yet, creating a system of “haves” and “have-nots”, which could have an impact on other areas.

One such concern is around inspections, given that wellbeing is an area the inspection handbook says will be looked at. However, Ofsted told Tes that “access to mental health teams will not, in itself, have an impact on inspection judgements”.

However, with Labour’s plan for all pupils to be covered by an MHST by 2029-30, this two-tier system may not last for too long - as long as sufficient funding is provided.

But for those who do have MHST access, the impact is huge - so much so that for some leaders it’s hard to imagine life without it, as Lloyd in Liverpool explains.

“I would be deterred from applying for a headship in a school that didn’t have access to this support because the knock-on effects would make the job harder for teachers on the ground, for parents, for young people.”

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