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Find out more about virtual attendance
Findings from Wave 1 of the COSMO Study were published in November 2022 and highlight the scale of the mental health crisis amongst children and young people. In this study over 44% of children scored above the threshold for ‘probable mental ill health’, with females and those identifying as non-binary+ reporting the highest rate of ill health. The study also reports that half of pupils from maintained schools rated their school’s mental health support as ‘not very good’ or ‘not at all good'.
This national conference will bring together leaders in education from across the country to discuss, reflect and learn about the best practice in school’s mental health. You will come away with updates on key areas, along with practical take-aways that you can implement in your setting straight away.
You’ll have plenty of opportunity throughout the day to put your questions to our expert speakers and network with peers.
A record number of children and young people were referred to mental health services in 2021, with referrals increasing by 134% between April and June compared to the same period in 2020 and a 96% increase from 2019.
…the levels reached are the continuation of a trend that is evident over the past decade or so. While it is likely that the COVID-19 pandemic has sped this trend up, we should not lay all the blame for this picture at its door. Things were bad before, and that means there are big systematic issues that need fixing. This problem won’t get better on its own.
Today’s highly disturbing findings show that almost one half of young people (44%) are struggling with mental ill-health. Even allowing for some of the factors that we know are affecting young people - the rise of social media, social isolation and disruption caused by the pandemic - this is an enormously worrying increase on the 2007 figure of 23%...The increase in mental ill-health among the young is a massive and growing problem requiring immediate intervention.
Who should attend?
SMHLs, Pastoral Leads, members of the SLT, DSLs, School Nurses, School Counsellors
This conference will enable you to:
- Network with colleagues who are working to drive improvement in children’s mental health provision
- Develop positive parental engagement in schools
- Improve how you work with parents, families and carers to support children and young people, including those families who might be hard to reach
- Take proactive steps to support children’s well-being
- Consider the importance of staff well-being, and how this can impact well-being across the school
- Implement strategies to monitor well-being in your school and understand the importance of this
- Understand how self-harm can manifest
- Be better prepared to respond to incidents to self-harm
- Understand the importance of staff emotional literacy and how you can take steps to improve this
- Understand, manage, and support anxiety in schools
