Guidance

Senior mental health lead training: conditions of grant for the 2022 to 2023 financial year

Updated 5 February 2024

Applies to England

1. Introduction

The Department for Education (DfE) is offering a grant of £1,200 in the 2022 to 2023 financial year for eligible state-funded schools and colleges to start quality assured senior mental health lead training by 31 July 2023.

Eligible settings that want to develop, or introduce, their whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing are encouraged to apply for a grant if they have identified a senior mental health lead who can begin training by 31 July 2023.

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

Settings that have already claimed a grant in the 2021 to 2022 financial year are not eligible to apply for another grant. This includes academy converters where a claim was made by the predecessor school.

2. Purpose of the senior mental health lead training grant

Grants will be provided to cover, or contribute towards, the cost of DfE quality assured training to be undertaken by a senior member of school or college staff who will become the ‘senior mental health lead’ for that setting. 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.

All eligible education settings can benefit from senior mental health lead training, and courses are available to meet a variety of learning needs and preferences of senior leads depending on of their level of experience, type of setting or location.

3. Grant allocation and eligibility

For each eligible setting that successfully submits both stages of the application process, we will provide a fixed grant of £1,200 to train a senior mental health lead.

Eligible settings will only be able to apply once for the training grant, as it is intended to train a single senior mental health lead who will implement and sustain an effective whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing.

4. Eligible settings

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 local-authority maintained schools
  • special academies and local authority maintained schools special schools (including alternative provision)
  • independent special schools whose pupils’ education is funded by their local authority
  • 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 training providers

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.

Some independent alternative provision settings will be eligible for a grant because the majority of their pupils will be funded by the local authority.

Independent institutions (with fee-paying pupils and students) that do not receive the funding types outlined above are not eligible for a grant, but they can still access DfE assured training courses that are open to self-funded learners.

This training grant is not available for leaders of early years settings. The department is investing up to a further £10m on the second phase of the Early Years Professional Development Programme (PDP) and will be providing online professional development training targeted at personal, social and emotional development for 2 to 4-year-olds, to ensure that children’s mental health and wellbeing is prioritised in the early years.

If you believe you are eligible to apply for a grant but are experiencing issues with the application process, contact us at MentalHealth.LeadTraining@education.gov.uk.

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

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

5.1 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 start training by 31 July 2023, and oversee your setting’s whole school or college approach

You should read the accompanying guidance, and reflect on the learning outcomes for the training.

When you apply for the grant, you will 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.

5.2 Permissible spend

The grant must be used to pay for DfE quality assured senior mental health 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 DfE 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 support the development of a senior mental health lead, and contribute 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 (for example, promotion materials or awareness sessions for education staff)

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 social, emotional or mental health interventions for children and young people

5.3 Applying for a grant

You can now apply for a grant if you are able to begin training by 31 July 2023. You must submit your application by 31 March 2023.

Follow these steps to apply:

  1. Eligible settings need to complete the first stage of the application process to reserve a grant. In this form, your eligibility will be checked and you will be asked to make a series of declarations as described in these conditions of grant.
  2. You will then receive confirmation that we have successfully received your application, and you can book a DfE quality assured training course to start by 31 July 2023. Please retain evidence of your booking, as this will be needed to claim your grant.
  3. Once you have received your evidence of booking from the training provider, please complete the second stage of your grant application.

In the second form, you will be asked to provide satisfactory evidence that confirms you have booked a quality assured course, for example a scanned copy, screenshot, or photograph of your confirmation email or invoice from your training provider. Please ensure your evidence includes the title of the training course, the start date, and the name of the training provider.

You will have at least 3 weeks to submit the second form, but if you do not submit by the deadline provided, we may release your place to other applicants to ensure grants do not go unclaimed.

5.4 When you will be paid

Payments will be made following a satisfactory review of the information and evidence submitted in the second part of the application process. You will be contacted directly if any additional information is required to support your application.

Once your application has been approved, we will contact you to confirm when you should expect to receive your grant.

Payments will be made on a quarterly basis:

  • to academies on the first working day of July 2022, October 2022, January 2023, and April 2023
  • to most settings on the last working day of June 2022, September 2022, December 2022, and March 2023

Maintained schools and maintained alternative provision settings will receive payment via their local authority, whilst all other settings will receive payment directly. This payment will be made alongside your regular funding and will appear as a separate line on that remittance.

Local authorities will also receive a breakdown of which schools to pass funding to; maintained schools and settings should contact their local authority if funds have not been received.

6. How we will use the data you provide

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; and 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. As a condition of your grant, we require you to provide feedback on your completed training, so that we can understand how the training is supporting schools and colleges to develop their approaches to mental health, and how we can improve our offer.

Your school or college will also be included on a publicly available list to enable health partners and local authorities to support take up of this offer and the development of effect whole school or college approaches to mental health and wellbeing.

7. 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 or college claiming the grant are open to inspection by the National Audit Office and our representatives.

We 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 recoupment of the whole or part of the grant paid.

8. Other terms

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

We reserve the right to withhold payment or seek reimbursement of payments already made if we consider 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 DfE.

9. 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, contact us via the ESFA enquiry form.

Use the links below to find out more about:

You can read the transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: a green paper including the government response to consultation.