A Psychotherapist for Every School?

From The Guardian:

One head is using his pupil premium to fund a full-time psychotherapist. He believes it is helping children's learning as well as their mental health problems ...

In a small office in a high school in a formerly industrial area in the West Midlands, I am talking to a psychotherapist. Each week up to 20 pupils at this mixed comprehensive have an appointment in this brightly lit, windowless room. They come to talk about problems with parents or friends, but also more nameless anxieties that can't be traced to a single cause.

Sometimes they come a few times, sometimes for a year. Initial consultations can be confidential – a letter sent to parents lets them know about the service and asks them to write back if they don't want their children to use it – but if sessions are regular, parents are told. ...

The headteacher ... believes the experiment is working, and cites improved attendance and GCSE results (59% of pupils here get A-C in five GCSEs including English and maths) and a reduced rate of exclusions.

Read more:
Should all schools have their own psychotherapist?


SuccubaSuprema writes:

I think this is an excellent idea, and that its implementation would benefit students, teachers, and staff at any educational institution, as well as the parents and the rest of the local community, to say nothing of society as a whole.  Kudos to the anonymous headteacher.