Guidance

Senior mental health lead training: conditions of grant for the 2024 to 2025 financial year

Updated 14 May 2024

Applies to England

1. Introduction

The Department for Education (DfE) is offering a grant of £1,200 in the 2024 to 2025 financial year for eligible state-funded schools and colleges to train a senior mental health lead.

We encourage eligible settings that want to develop, or introduce, their whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing to apply for a grant. You must identify a senior mental health lead who can begin training by 31 March 2025.

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

We will provide grants to cover, or contribute towards, the cost of DfE quality assured training for a senior member of school or college staff to train as 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 that setting.

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

3. Grant allocation and eligibility

Each eligible setting that successfully submits both stages of the application process will receive a fixed grant of £1,200 to train a senior mental health lead who will be expected to implement and sustain an effective whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing.

Eligible schools and colleges that claimed a grant in a previous financial year can claim a second £1,200 grant if the senior mental health lead they previously trained left their setting before embedding a whole school or college approach.

4. Eligible settings

All state-funded education settings receiving Education and Skills Funding Agency (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 special schools (including alternative provision)
• independent special schools whose pupils’ education is funded by their local authority
• further education (FE) 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 multi-academy trust must claim individually. Distinct institutions (with a DfE campus ID) within larger FE colleges will each be eligible for a training grant.

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

4.1 Who is not eligible

Independent institutions (with fee-paying pupils and students) that do not receive the funding types outlined above are not eligible for a grant. Ineligible settings can still access DfE quality assured training courses independently.

This training grant is not available for leaders of early years settings. The department has published a mental health and wellbeing resource article on the Help for early years providers platform on GOV.UK.

If you believe you are eligible, but are experiencing application issues, contact us at MentalHealth.LeadTraining@education.gov.uk.

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 March 2025, 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.

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)

We do 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 March 2025.

Follow these steps to apply:

1. Complete application form 1 by 31 December 2024 to reserve a grant. This form checks your eligibility. You will be asked to make a series of declarations as described in these conditions of grant.

2. You will receive confirmation that we have successfully received your application. This will tell you to book a DfE quality assured training course that must start by 31 March 2025. Keep evidence of your booking as you need this when you submit application form 2.

3. You must submit application form 2 by 31 January 2025 to upload your booking evidence and claim your grant.

The second form asks you to provide evidence you have booked a quality assured course. This can be a scanned copy, screenshot or photograph of your confirmation email or invoice from your training provider. You should ensure that your evidence includes:

• title of the training course
• start date
• name of the training provider

If you are applying for a second grant, make sure you ‘tick’ the declaration to confirm your previous senior mental health lead has left. We will not pay your grant if you do not confirm this.

You will have up to 3 weeks to submit the second form. If you do not submit within 3 weeks, we may release your place to applicants on our waiting list.

5.4 When you will be paid

Once you have submitted evidence of your course booking in application form 2, we will review the information provided. We will email you to let you know we have approved your application and confirm when your grant will be paid.

We will make payments on a quarterly basis. When you receive your grant will depend on when you complete the second stage of your application.

Most settings will get their payments on the last working day of:

• June 2024
• September 2024
• December 2024
• March 2025

Academies will get their payments on the sixth working day of:

• July 2024
• October 2024
• January 2025
• April 2025

Maintained schools and maintained alternative provision settings will receive payment via their local authority. All other settings will receive payment directly. We will make this payment alongside your regular funding and it will appear as a separate line on that remittance.

We will provide local authorities with a breakdown of which schools to pass funding to. Maintained schools and settings should contact their local authority if they have not received their funds.

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 for developing and measuring the impact of the service; and for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

When applying for a grant, we will ask you to confirm that you will provide feedback on your training when contacted by DfE.

Your school or college will also be included on a list of published grant claims.

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 the whole or part of the grant paid being recouped.

8. Other terms

You must inform us if your senior mental health lead is unable to complete the training or meet the other terms of this 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
• breached any other terms of this agreement
• provided false or incorrect statements or information in your funding claim

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, please contact us using our customer help centre.

Use the links below to find out more about:

• senior mental health lead training
• promoting and supporting mental health and wellbeing in schools and colleges