Theresa May to expand mental health training in schools

Prime minister, Theresa May has announced measures to provide every school with mental health first-aid training.

According to TES, the plan builds on proposals which were announced at the beginning of the year to make mental health first-aid training available to all secondary schools, with the aim of training at least one teacher in every secondary school by 2019.

May has said she wants to ensure each school has a single point of contact with mental health services and plans to include more about mental wellbeing in the current curriculum.

The plans are part of a wider package of reforms that would tear up the Mental Health Act and replace it with new legislation aimed largely at reducing the number of vulnerable people detained in prison cells.

May said: "We are going to roll out mental health support to every school in the country, ensure that mental health is taken far more seriously in the workplace, and raise standards of care with 10,000 more mental health professionals working in the NHS by 2020.

"These reforms are a vital part of my plan to build a fairer society for all, not just the privileged few, and they demonstrate the positive difference that strong and stable leadership makes."