NCPS engagement with Baroness Tyler leads to amendment to Children's Wellbeing & Schools Bill
We’re pleased to see a probing amendment tabled by Baroness Tyler of Enfield to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which brings much-needed attention to access to counselling and therapeutic support in schools.
The amendment follows detailed policy discussions, working closely with Barnardo’s, as part of our shared efforts to ensure children and young people can access timely, appropriate mental health support before difficulties escalate.
Head of Public Affairs & Advocacy, Meg Moss, supported the drafting of the amendment alongside Barnardo’s, drawing on NCPS research, member insight, and our long-standing policy work on early intervention, school-based counselling, and the ‘missing middle’ of unmet need.
The amendment proposes that children and young people should be able to access emotional and mental health support within their school, delivered by appropriately registered practitioners. It also seeks to strengthen the role of Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) by ensuring access to counselling or equivalent therapeutic support for pupils whose needs are too complex for low-intensity interventions but do not meet Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) thresholds.
Many children fall between existing services: they're often considered ‘not unwell enough’ for high-intensity mental health support, while their needs aren't able to be met by brief or low-intensity interventions. Without access to relational, therapeutic support at the right moment, these children are at risk of worsening distress, disengagement from education, and longer-term harm.
Speaking about the amendment, Meg Moss said:
“This amendment is an important opportunity to open up a more serious discussion about what meaningful mental health support in schools actually looks like. We hear time and again from practitioners, schools, and young people themselves that there is a gap between early help and specialist services. Counselling can, and does, play a key role in that space, but only if it is properly recognised and embedded. Some schools already do that amazingly well, but we'd like to see this at a policy level so that every school, and every child, can benefit from best practice.”
We’re grateful to Baroness Tyler for tabling this amendment and for her ongoing passion for and engagement with the evidence and policy challenges in this area. We also value the collaborative approach taken with partners, including Barnardo’s, BACP, and Place2Be, recognising that sustainable change in children’s mental health requires coordinated effort across organisations, sectors, and disciplines.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will now continue its passage through Parliament, with further stages and potential amendments ahead. NCPS will continue to engage with peers, MPs, and sector partners to ensure that counselling & psychotherapy is properly understood, appropriately positioned, and meaningfully included in future policy for children and young people.
