Mental health: Minister ordered school counselling despite budget advice

Michelle McIlveen gave an order for mental health services for schoolchildren after officials said they were not affordable

Mental health and counselling services for primary school pupils only continued until March 2023 due to orders from an education minister.

The Healthy Happy Minds programme was axed by the Department of Education on Thursday.

More than 19,000 children benefitted from the scheme in its first year.

But newly-published departmental papers reveal that Michelle McIlveen had issued two separate ministerial directions to keep the scheme going.

Ministerial directions are formal instructions from ministers telling their department to proceed with spending, despite objections from their senior civil servants.

According to Department of Education figures, over 10% of schoolchildren received counselling or therapies in the first school year the Healthy Happy Minds scheme ran from November 2021 to June 2022.

The papers also reveal that education is facing a "funding gap" of over £300m just to "stand still" in 2023-24.

Funding for Healthy Happy Minds was withdrawn by the Department of Education on the same day as funding for "holiday hunger" payments was cut.

It was introduced in November 2021 so that primary schools could provide counselling and a range of therapies to pupils who needed them.

Some schools used the money to pay for counselling for pupils; others to provide things like play, art, music or even equine therapy.

'Inescapable funding pressures'

But the department's own equality screening for ending the scheme reveals that it took two separate ministerial directions from former minister Ms McIlveen for it to continue during the 2022-23 school year.

She issued a ministerial direction to officials on 21 June 2022 to spend £2.25m on the scheme from September to December 2022.

"The advice to [the] minister at that time was that such allocations were unaffordable given the extent of unfunded inescapable pressures the department continued to face in the 2022-23 financial year," the Department of Education equality screening said.

Ms McIlveen made a further direction to spend another £1.75m from January to March 2023 despite again being advised by officials that was "unaffordable".

The Department of Education document said that the scheme "did not have budget cover for the period September 2022 to March 2023 and the expenditure was approved by ministerial direction".

With no minister in place due to the collapse of the Stormont executive, funding for the scheme was ended by officials on 31 March to try to save money given the pressures on the education budget.

Therapist Katie Sparham says children have been on waiting lists to receive mental health help

An experienced therapist who worked with a number of schools as part of Healthy Happy Minds said that they were "devastated" by the end of the scheme.

Katie Sparham told BBC News NI that she had provided help to pupils who had suffered things like trauma, anxiety, bullying and bereavement.

"You also work with parents and with teachers, the adults, the attachment figures within their lives," she said.

"The school principals are absolutely devastated and gutted.

"I've just had a message from one of them to say that some of the schools are trying to get some funding themselves to get people to come in.

"The teachers and the parents, they've just been left.

"They've developed a system in the schools with referrals, so they would have waiting lists.

"So there was hope it would continue so the next children waiting would be seen and suddenly that's it gone."

'Gutted for the children'

She said that when she heard that the scheme was ending it was "like a kick in the stomach".

"We therapists got told last," she said.

"We were told it was all going to be based on evaluations and we'd been working so hard to get all those in.

"We've done everything we can and in the end it was a purely financial decision.

"I feel gutted for the children, absolutely gutted for the children."

Funding for the Engage scheme, through which over 400 schools were able to employ additional teachers to give extra help to some pupils after the Covid-19 pandemic, also ended on Thursday.

While no budget has yet been set for Stormont departments for 2023-24 Northern Ireland's financial watchdog has warned of significant cuts.

The Northern Ireland Fiscal Council said that departmental spending was due to fall by 6.4% in real terms in 2023-24..