To ask the Minister of Health to detail his engagement with the Minister of Education to co-design and co-fund primary school counselling and mental health support.

The Department of Health and the Department of Education currently collaborate to provide mental health support in primary schools through engagement and joint funding.

In February 2021, the Department of Health and the Department of Education jointly launched the Children and Young People’s Emotional Health and Wellbeing in Education Framework. The main emphasis of the Framework is to support educational settings to promote emotional health and wellbeing at a universal level, through a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach. This will enable our children and young people to build resilience in coping with challenges they may face in life and providing early and enhanced support for those who may be at risk or showing signs of needing further help. Services and projects that have been established under the Framework are available across primary and post-primary schools.

The following initiatives have been piloted or rollout out to primary schools since the publication of the Framework.

School Nursing Pilot (commenced 2021/22)

Resilience in Education, Assisting Change to Happen (commenced 2021/22)

Regional Integrated Support for Education - Expansion of the existing RISE service (from up to primary 4 to up to primary 7) - (commenced 2021/22)

Being Well Doing Well – (recently commenced in the 2023/24 academic year.)

The Attach Project (TAP) (commenced 2021/22)

Further information on each of the above projects can be found at: Emotional Health and Wellbeing | Department of Education (education-ni.gov.uk)