Guidance

Step 1: senior mental health lead training: grant application guidance

Updated 14 May 2024

Applies to England

Introduction

We are offering a senior member of staff, within a school or college (settings), the opportunity to receive a grant for training to develop the knowledge and skills to implement an effective whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing.

The grant will cover, or contribute towards, the cost of a Department for Education (DfE) quality assured training course for a senior member of school or college staff.

This guidance helps you complete the senior mental health lead training grant form.

About the grant

The grant must be used to pay for a DfE quality assured training course that provides a senior lead in your setting with the knowledge and skills to develop and implement a whole school or college approach to emotional health and mental wellbeing.

If your setting meets the terms and conditions of grant, is ready to develop or implement a whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing and has a senior mental health lead available to begin training on or before 31 March 2025, you should apply now using this form.

Eligibility for a grant

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 to apply for a grant. This includes:

• mainstream  academies and maintained schools
• special academies and maintained special schools (including alternative provision) and independent special schools whose pupils’ education is funded by their local authority
• further education (FE) colleges attended by under-18-year-olds (one application 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.

When to complete your submission

You will be able to register for a grant using the online application form until all available places have been allocated. If there are no places left for this financial year when you submit the online application form, you will be added to a waiting list.

Accessing the form

Please read the sections below before you apply for a senior mental health lead training grant.

Before you start

Before you apply, make sure you have:

• commitment from your school or college senior leadership team to develop a whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing
• a senior lead who will start the training by 31 March 2025 and oversee your setting’s whole school or college approach
• read the accompanying guidance and reflected on the learning outcomes
• a DfE Sign-in account that is linked to the setting you are applying for

Sign in to your DfE Sign-in account

Please try your DfE Sign-in credentials as soon as possible to avoid any issues with submitting your form.

After checking your DfE Sign-in information, you can:

1. access the senior mental health lead training form
2. log in to DfE Sign-in using your username and password
3. if you are part of an FE college and have more than one eligible campus, choose the individual campus you want to complete the form for
4. the next page will display the details we hold about the organisation you selected when you logged in. This will show the name, address and unique reference number (URN) or UK provider reference number (UKPRN) of the organisation, as well as the name and email address of the person who logged in via DfE Sign-in
5. if these details are correct, select ‘continue’ to move to the next page
6. if you believe they are incorrect or you are experiencing issues accessing the form, contact us using the customer help portal

Your account must be connected to the organisation you are applying on behalf of. For FE providers with individual campus IDs, you will need to select the campus ID you are applying for.

You do not need to add any services in your DfE Sign-in account. It is used for authentication only, and the form will not appear in your list of services.

If you do not have a DfE Sign-in account

You will need to create a DfE Sign-in account if you do not have one by completing steps 1 to 5 below. 

1. Select ‘create a DfE Sign-in account’ on the DfE Sign-in page
2. Enter your name and email address (use a valid business email address that contains your name)
3. You will receive an email to verify your email address; copy the code from this email and paste it into the box on the verification page
4. Create a memorable password of 8 characters or more. Your password must include 2 upper case letters, 2 lower case letters and 2 numbers
5. Sign in using your new credentials and request access to the organisation for which you would like to submit the form. Your request will be sent to the approver(s) of your organisation or will be dealt with by DfE’s Sign-in Support Team if you do not already have an approver

Once your request to access an organisation has been approved, you can follow the steps outlined in sign in to your DfE Sign-in account to complete the form.

You might have noticed the term ‘approver’ when creating your account. An approver is someone at your organisation responsible for controlling who has access to DfE Sign-in and the services within the system. It is usually a senior person, such as an administrator or a manager. For security reasons, you will need the approval of one of your organisation’s approvers before you can access the form.

 If you need further assistance 

If you are having problems using the DfE Sign-in service, use our DfE Sign-in help service. You will be able to request further assistance if required. When raising a support request, select ‘other’.

If you believe you are eligible to claim but have problems accessing the form, contact us using our customer help portal.

 Completing the form

Selecting ‘Continue’ on each page will take you through the form.

You will be advised what will happen once you have submitted the form.

Conditions for accessing this funding

You must be an eligible setting to apply for the senior mental health lead training grant.

If you are not an eligible setting, you will see a message stating that your setting is not eligible for a grant.

If you think this is incorrect, you can submit an enquiry using our customer help portal with your details and we will investigate the issue.

 Start page

This is a read-only page which explains the purpose of the form and provides you with some useful links.

 Your details

This page will display the details we hold about your setting. It will also confirm the credentials you have used to sign in to DfE Sign-in.

Waiting list

If there are no grants available when you submit your online form, you will be asked to join a waiting list. If you join the waiting list, you will be contacted if a place becomes available.

Registration application

You must register your details using this form for the grant.

To apply for the grant and proceed with your form, you must check the mandatory checkbox.

Summary page

Once you have completed your submission, you will be presented with several declarations as set out in the grant terms and conditions.

You will not be able to submit your form without agreeing to these declarations.

After completing the declarations, you should select the ‘accept and send’ button.

You will then see the confirmation page.

 Confirmation

The final page confirms your registration relating to the senior mental health lead training grant and will provide a reference number.

You will also receive a confirmation email containing the details and reference number of your submission, and information about what happens next.

Changing your submission

Once you have submitted a form, you cannot change it. However, you can submit another form and we will use the details from the most recently submitted form and disregard previous versions.

Claims can be submitted, or resubmitted, up until the deadline by selecting the link to the claim form. It will not be possible to grant any extensions to the deadline.

You will receive a new submission number for an amended claim.

Deleting your submission

If you wish to delete your registration, you can do so by accessing the form again. You will be able to re-register if grants are still available to allocate.

If you have already submitted the second stage of the application, deleting this form will  result in your grant not being paid. If you have already received your grant, ESFA will recover your grant funding.

Enquiries

If you have any questions about this guidance or the senior mental health lead training grant, contact us using our customer help portal.

When completing an enquiry form, select ‘other’ as your query type.