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Dept for Education and Skills

Answer

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what (a) training and (b) resources are available to educational professionals dealing with young people with experience of self-harm; and what definition of self-harm the Department uses. [221576] Mr. Stephen Twigg: The school workforce can draw upon a range of training support in dealing with self- harm. The resources available centrally include the Department's 2001 guide "Promoting Children's Mental Health in Early Years and School Settings" which gives advice on how self-harm can be managed; and "Promoting emotional health and well-being through the National Healthy School Standard", jointly produced by the Departments of Health and Education and Skills, offers guidance and training modules on whole school approaches to supporting emotional well- being more generally. Every local education authority in England works in partnership with primary care trusts to manage and deliver a local healthy schools programme, supported by a local co-ordinator and education and health team. Further guidelines for education professionals will be available later this year when a national inquiry into self-harm reports. The Department uses the Inquiry's description of self-harm as encompassing "a wide range of things that people do to themselves, in a deliberate and usually hidden way, which are damaging."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

432 c451-2W;432 c450W; 221576

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Pupils Staff Schools Training Young people Terminology Self-harm Department for Education and Skills

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk