Why having a ‘mental health professional’ in every school is not the answer

Labour’s plan to install a mental health professional in every school puts children at risk of being indoctrinated into believing they have a mental illness, when in reality they are simply experiencing normal human emotions.

Instead of just feeling anxious about the normal pressures of life, they must have an ‘anxiety disorder’.

Mental health has turned into an ‘identity’ – much like gender ideology – and to affirm a child’s self diagnosis is not beneficial to the child’s long term outcomes, nor indeed society.

The huge growth in young people seeking benefits due to ‘mental health’ is extremely worrying and takes away the support needed by those individuals with genuine, severe disabilities.

The lack of structural oversight of the mental wellbeing industry also risks schools opening the door to unqualified activist individuals with their own political agendas. We have already seen the harm caused by the ‘Wild West’ situation of RHSE providers in schools exposing children to inappropriate materials – how much more harm will be caused by vulnerable children being counselled by unqualified therapists on a 1-1 basis, possibly without parental knowledge or consent?

Ministers should instead tackle the underlying causes of the rise in children experiencing emotional distress, including family breakdown, exposure to pornography online and pressure from social media via smartphones.

Without addressing these serious issues, any attempt to solve mental health issues in schools will be like throwing taxpayer’s money into the wind and making the problem significantly worse.