Establishing high quality training provision for senior mental health leads in schools and colleges

Concepts

• education and training
• department for education
• senior mental health leads
• state schools
• mental health
• senior lead
• senior lead training specification
• schools
• colleges
• college approach

Location

Description

The Government has committed to incentivise and support all state schools and colleges to identify and train a senior lead for mental health by 2025. It is intended, subject to further feasibility testing and funding decisions, that schools and colleges will be provided with funding to pay training providers directly for courses that meet specified senior mental health lead learning outcomes: enabling senior leads to develop their setting's whole school/college approach to wellbeing and mental health. The Department for Education would like to engage early with the training provider market, ahead of any public announcement, to understand how it may be able to support this commitment to help schools and colleges. In particular, we would like to ensure: - That providers can deliver a range of courses delivering some or all of the outcomes set out in a senior lead training specification (we will share this with providers who respond). - That there will be sufficient capacity to meet demand in a phased approach to offering training to senior leads in schools and colleges from autumn 2021. - That the sector can help the Government to support schools and colleges to navigate the range of courses on offer, and ensure that training courses purchased through government funds are of a high quality. We are interested in hearing from providers that fulfil at least one of the following criteria: - currently offering, or planning to offer, training to support the introduction or development of a whole school / colleges approach to mental health and wellbeing into schools and colleges. - with experience in supporting education staff to implement whole school/college approaches to wellbeing and mental health. - with an interest in engaging with government, and capacity to deliver wellbeing and mental health training to education staff from autumn 2021. - with experience of quality assuring training that is delivered to schools and colleges.

CPV Codes

• 80000000 - Education and training services

Indicators

• Contract is suitable for SMEs.
• Contract is suitable for VCOs.

Other Information

To engage with this consultation process, please complete the form linked below. Subsequent to the responses received, the Department will share more information and invite respondents to complete a questionnaire. A virtual market event will take place on 10 March at 15.00 summarising our plans and providing an opportunity to ask questions. Any subsequent commercial activity will be advertised as appropriate via OJEU and Contracts Finder. The Government set out a commitment in the 2017 Green Paper, Transforming children and young people's mental health to incentivise and support all schools and colleges to identify and train a senior lead for mental health by 2025. The aim is to provide a senior person (or person supported by the senior team) in every state school or college with the knowledge and practical skills to develop or introduce their setting's holistic approach to wellbeing and mental health. The knowledge requirements and expected outcomes for the training closely align to Public Health England's (PHE) Promoting children and young people's emotional health and wellbeing (publishing.service.gov.uk) principles to promoting a whole school/college approach to emotional health and wellbeing. A training specification will be provided (to be shared with respondents), against which courses provided to schools and colleges can be assessed, and school and college senior mental health leads can consider their current knowledge and skill levels and identify their training requirements. A mechanism will be required to support schools and colleges to select the most appropriate high quality course meeting their needs from a range of providers. Indicative timing is as follows: Request to engage published = 25 February 2021 Providers invited to complete questionnaire = 8 March 2021 Virtual Market event = 10 March 2021 Deadline date for questionnaire = 16 March 2021 Delivery of training begins = Autumn 2021 (TBC) This Early Engagement Notice (EEN) is for information only, and the department reserves the right not to enter a formal procurement process and not award contract(s). The information contained in this notice, including information relating to the nature and scope of the authority requirements, the service classification of this requirement from the list of CPV codes, is only indicative of the authority's current thinking and is neither exhaustive nor binding. The authority reserves the right at its absolute discretion to amend it at the time of issue of any further notices or at any other time. This EEN is not a binding statement of intent; it outlines the Authority's intention to engage with the supply market on an open and formal basis to develop potential options for this scheme if that is what is decided. Market engagement form https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=yXfS-grGoU2187O4s0qC-UdEPIJj... Public Health England's Promoting children and young people's emotional health and wellbeing https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attac...