Guidance

Senior mental health lead training: conditions of grant for the 2021 to 2022 financial year

Updated 5 February 2024

Applies to England

1. Introduction

The Department for Education (DfE) is offering a grant for senior mental health lead training to around a third of all eligible state-funded schools and colleges in the 2021 to 2022 financial year.

Eligible settings that can undertake training before March 2022 and want to develop, or introduce, their whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing are encouraged to apply for the grant.

The government remains committed to offering senior mental health lead training to all eligible state-funded schools and colleges by 2025.

2. Purpose of the senior mental health lead training grant

Grants will cover, or contribute towards, the cost of DfE quality assured training for a senior member of school or college staff. The training will develop the knowledge and skills to implement an effective whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing in their setting.

Senior mental health lead training is relevant to all education settings, and courses are available to meet the learning needs and preferences of senior leads regardless of their level of experience, type of setting or location.

3. Grant allocation and eligibility

We’ll provide a fixed grant of £1,200 to a lead in each eligible setting.

All state-funded education settings that are in receipt of ESFA pre-16 revenue, high needs block, or 16 to 19 programme funding are eligible for the grant, including:

  • mainstream academies and maintained schools
  • alternative provision academies (including hospital schools)
  • pupil referral units
  • special academies and maintained schools
  • further education colleges attended by under 18-year-olds (one claim per campus ID)
  • sixth form colleges
  • special post-16 institutions
  • non-maintained special schools
  • local authorities

Independent institutions (with fee-paying pupils and students) that do not receive the funding types outlined above are not eligible for a grant, but may access DfE assured training courses at their own expense.

If you are unsure of your eligibility, please complete the ESFA enquiry form.

Eligible settings are only allowed one training grant, intended to train a single senior mental health lead in each setting.

Grant applications can only be submitted by individual settings. Settings within a single or multi-academy trust must claim individually. Distinct institutions (with a DfE campus ID) within larger further education colleges will each be eligible for a training grant.

The training grant will not be available for leaders of early years settings. This training grant is not available for leaders of early years settings. However, the department is investing a further £10 million on the next phase of the early years professional development programme (PDP). This will include online professional development training targeted at personal, social and emotional development for 2 to 4-year-olds in direct response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, to ensure that children’s mental health and wellbeing is prioritised in the early years.

To receive the grant, eligible settings must meet the conditions of grant as set out below.

4. Terms on which the grant is allocated to eligible schools and colleges

4.1 Before you submit your grant claim

Before you submit your grant claim you must:

  • have the commitment of your school or college senior leadership team to implement a whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing in your setting
  • have identified a senior mental health lead, ready to receive the training in 2021 to 2022 financial year, and oversee your setting’s whole school or college approach

When you apply for the grant, you’ll be asked to declare that these terms are met. You need to agree that the senior mental health lead in your setting will provide DfE with feedback following completion of the training, so that we can monitor how well it’s achieving the intended objectives.

You can read the accompanying guidance, and reflect on the learning outcomes.

4.2 Permissible spend

The senior mental health lead training grant must be used to pay for DfE quality assured senior mental training, to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to implement and sustain an effective whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing in a setting. It will be paid as stated in section 14 of the Education Act 2002.

You can view the full published list of quality assured courses.

Any element of the grant not spent on a DfE quality assured course can then be used:

  • for supply cover for the senior mental health lead, should a school or college need to backfill a senior lead while undertaking training
  • to fund further training, activity or resources that supports the development of a senior mental health lead, and contributes to the implementation of an effective whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing in a setting

Further training, activity or resources may include:

  • additional courses or coaching that support the further development of the senior mental health lead, enabling them to establish, implement or sustain a whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing
  • external support to assess your existing school or college approach to promoting and supporting mental health, to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement
  • online resources and toolkits that support the senior lead, or other staff, to embed, sustain or otherwise improve the effectiveness of their whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing (many resources are available for free)
  • other activities by the senior lead within their setting that focus on raising wider awareness and understanding of their whole school or college approach to better promote and support mental health (eg promotion materials or awareness sessions for education staff)

The DfE does not consider the following expenditure as falling within the scope of further activity:

  • employing counsellors or other professional individuals or groups to provide specific mental health interventions with children and young people

4.3 Applying for a grant

Grants are available on a first come, first served basis for all eligible settings until we have allocated all available funds for this financial year. Eligible settings must complete the following process to apply for a grant:

  • apply and confirm your eligibility and acceptance of the terms stated here through the online application form. Once you have completed this form and received confirmation of your submission, you should proceed to book a DfE quality assured training course
  • submit evidence of booking your DfE quality assured course through a second online form, so we can authorise your grant payment. This is the final stage of the application and the department will contact settings via email when they are able to access this form. You will be given at least 3 weeks notice to complete this form from the point of receiving your email from the department

If you do not complete the second form within 3 weeks of being invited to do so by the department, we may release your place to applicants on our waiting list, to ensure grants do not go unclaimed.

Once we have allocated all available grants, the application system will ask if you want to join our waiting list and DfE will confirm future grant funding in the spring of 2022.

Satisfactory evidence of booking includes:

  • confirming which quality assured course(s) you have booked
  • uploading evidence of purchase, for example a scanned copy or photograph of your confirmation email(s) or invoice(s) from your training provider(s)

Payments will be made following a review of the evidence submitted confirming that you have booked a DfE quality assured course.

Maintained schools and maintained alternative provision settings will receive payment via the local authority, whilst all other settings will receive payment directly.

DfE will collect and use the data submitted through the online forms to compile aggregate statistical information to develop and measure the impact of the service; for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

By applying for a grant, you are accepting that an appropriate DfE representative will contact you directly to ask that you participate in our programme evaluation. This includes providing feedback on your completed training as a condition of your grant, and subsequently helping us to understand how the training is supporting schools and colleges to develop their approaches to mental health, to inform future support.

5. Record keeping

You should retain records to show that the grant has been used for the intended purposes for 6 years after the end of the financial year in which the expenditure has taken place.

The books and records of the school claiming the grant are open to inspection by the National Audit Office and representatives of the department.

The department may request further information to determine if your school or college has complied with these conditions of grant.

Failure to provide this information may result in the department requiring repayment of the whole or part of the grant paid.

6. Other terms

You must inform the department if the senior mental health lead is unable to complete the training or meet the other terms of the grant.

The department reserves the right to withhold payment or seek reimbursement of payments already made if it considers that you:

  • have not spent the funding in accordance with this agreement
  • have breached any other terms of this agreement
  • have provided false or incorrect statements or information in your claim for funding

The school or college will be informed of the above, in writing, along with the sum that immediately becomes payable, by the school or college, back to the department.

7. Further information

If you have a query about the grant or eligibility criteria which is not covered in these terms and conditions or the guidance below, please contact us.

Use the links below to find out more about:

You can read the transforming children and young peoples mental health provision: a green paper including the government response.