Mental health and school attendance difficulties (1)
Mental health and school attendance difficulties
The reasons some children struggle to attend school can be complex. We look at the issues and offer hope.
There is a school attendance crisis nationally. According to NHS Digital 2023 there is a link between the rise in school absence and the rise of mental health and wellbeing challenges.
Louise Parker Engels is one of the lived experience partners in our Families Programme. She also runs Define Fine, offering parent peer support for school attendance difficulties. She gives her insights into this increasingly critical issue.
About Define Fine
Struggling to attend school is often linked to mental or physical health problems, or to issues relating to special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Frequently, however, these children are initially described as being ‘fine in school’.
Are they really fine or are they masking? Or just about coping? Many parents and carers, and even professionals, are unsure what they can do to support a child or young person who is distressed and struggling to attend school.
Define Fine is a member of the PLACE Network, supported by the Charlie Waller Trust. We focus on parent carer peer support for school attendance difficulties nationally and also work in collaboration with local support groups across the network.
PLACE brings together projects and groups across the UK offering peer support for parents and carers of children and young people with mental health issues. PLACE Network.
We are a team of parents and professionals with lived experience of school attendance difficulties. In addition to our online group parent peer support, we offer direct one-to-one support and case management at no cost to parents. As far as we are aware, that means we are unique as an organisation focused on school attendance.
We are a not for profit and we work alongside charitable organisations across the fields of send and mental health who share our values and ethos. We also provide continuing professional development (CPD) training to local authorities and to health and education professionals. Our training fees for this work fund our peer support, along with grants and donations.
New report: Not in School
The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition and Centre for Mental Health recently published a report: 'Not in school: the mental health barriers to school attendance'. We welcome its findings and recommendations; they validate much of our collective lived experience in relation to what drives school absence.
It is, of course, vital to understand the importance of mental health barriers. We feel it’s also important to locate these in a wider context: taking into account children’s environment within and outside school helps ensure they receive effective, timely support.
“The rising levels of persistent absenteeism suggest there is a crisis in school attendance, but the drivers of this are more complex than often perceived. Social determinants of poor mental health such as poverty, housing insecurity, racism, bullying, caring responsibilities, and unmet SEND needs, amongst others, contribute to poor attendance at school.”
