Warning of increase in anxiety, self-harm and depression among primary school children

Those who appeared before the committee each warned about understaffed and disjointed mental health services while emotional and mental ill health amongst school students is increasing.

Schools are usually the first port of call for children in crises, and staff and parents do their best, but they are not trained mental health experts, Mr McGorman said.

The services providing mental health support to children, while excellent when you can access them, are completely inadequate and under-staffed. Children are suffering and getting worse the longer they have to wait for expert help. This has to change.” 

The system needs to tackle a number of areas, including support for access learning, long waiting lists, and the capacity for early intervention, he said. 

“Above all, there needs to be joined-up thinking.”

While the pandemic has made things worse, things weren't great before 2020, he added. 

"We have children who are bereaved, whose family unit has fallen apart due to addiction, mental ill-health or divorce or separation," he said.

There are children who are homeless, who are in direct provision, who have fled war-torn countries. My own school has supported children in all of these scenarios, some of those children have experienced several of them at once." 

There are times when a child needs support far beyond what the school can provide.

“Too often this is the point where children are failed.” 

Mr McGorman said at one point he could hold a case conference for a child. 

“It just doesn't exist anymore." 

This is down to staffing cuts, he added. 

"Services have been absolutely skeletonised.”

Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools executive member Craig Petrie said it could be a good thing if teachers were offered basic training in mental health rather than it being the sole responsibility of a specialist teacher.

“And yet in doing so, it could be that we would normalise the idea that schools are the place for this intervention," he said.

"Schools can’t keep carrying this: we don’t have the professional expertise: juggling with students’ health, we’re terrified of dropping a ball. We do not have the time.

“As long as we continue to act in place of proper services, students will continue to fall between the cracks, and schools will continue to have to choose whether we support a child with mental health crisis at the cost of the child with the specific learning need. Some of those choices will have a cost.”