Experts say that mental health problems arise among school going children and the schools and teachers are "buckling under the strain" and are trying to support them.

According to a group of education and health experts writing in the journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, a great barrier stands ahead of many families in England as they find it difficult to find help from  NHS child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) which puts the schools on pressure.

“Children’s burgeoning health needs are not currently being met by the health sector. Schools and teachers provide vital support but they are buckling under the strain of the demands placed on them,” they say.

“The mental health of children and young people in England, and the services designed to support them, are in a dire state,” they add. While rates of mental illness in under-18s have risen by half in the last three years, “provision is nowhere near sufficient to meet need.”

One in four children and young people of 500,000 are only being referred to CAMHS every year and only they get the services and help as provided.

The authors include Chloe Lowry of the UCL Institute of Education in London, Lisa-Maria Müller and Alison Peacock from the Chartered College of Teaching and Anant Jani of Heidelberg university’s Institute of Global Health in Germany. Schools should receive funding from the NHS to help them train teachers to cope with rising need, they argue.

Teachers’ detailed knowledge of and regular interaction with their pupils means they are “not only the first port of call when concerns arise, but for many the only port of call”. Children and young people seek help from them more often than from their own family, surveys show. Teachers are regarded, alongside GPs and social workers, as part of the first tier of support in CAMHS.

Read more - https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/11/teachers-buckling-under-strain-of-pupils-mental-health-crisis