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This blog post focuses on what the professionals working in pupil referral units (PRU) and alternative provision (AP) think helps support students with their mental health post-Covid-19. If we gave the professionals working with these students a voice, what would this minority report back? What would they say works for these students?

Although Covid-19 seems like a distant memory, the startling figures emerging about the impact of the pandemic on students’ mental health is something most educational professionals are aware of. MIND that 82 per cent of students surveyed in the UK in 2021 had said that they had suffered difficulties with their mental health and 78 per cent of these said that school had ‘made their mental health worse’. This relates to all schools and excludes the small minority of students that have the added exacerbation of being permanently excluded to their list of mental health difficulties. The trauma of loss alone would be enough to contribute to their already ongoing list of difficulties.

Unfortunately, these figures don’t exist. There has been a distinct lack of light shining on these settings, and also a lack of research into the voice of the professionals who work with these students daily.

Research from mainstream schools in the UK has already concluded that students with difficulties in their social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) are ‘disproportionately excluded from schools’ (Thompson et al., 2021). There are many potential reasons for this: schools not able to cope (Children’s Commissioner, 2017) and ‘budget cuts’ (Britton et al., 2019 in Thompson et al., 2021). At the centre of the exclusion is a child, a vulnerable child that has faced difficulties that have not been understood and compounded by another rejection from school, a place that should offer a level of care. Research has already ‘identified a bi-directional association between psychological distress and exclusion’ (Ford et al., 2017 in Thompson et al., 2021). The formula is clear: exclusion + psychological distress = presenting need with SEMH.

‘The formula is clear: exclusion + psychological distress = presenting need with social, emotional and mental health.’

Children’s mental health has deteriorated post-Covid-19 but there seems to be a lack of any specific focus on how best to support these students in the referral units and the alternative providers where they have been placed. Research into what professionals working in a small cohort of pupil referral units and alternative provisions think seems to be a simple task but seems to be missing from the vast majority of educational research. My research is asking the minority professionals working with students in PRU and AP settings to report their experiences. Strangely, ‘there is a paucity of research investigating the perceptions of educators with regards to the specific needs of young people in PRUs’ (Kaip et al., 2024). The system is designed for those students excluded, but the lack of research around it, and what these specific students need, is baffling at best, and detrimental at worst.

The professionals working with these students know their cohort and have a voice that is ready to be heard. Their number one advice for supporting students with their SEMH came down to this: having the right, caring, consistent, nurturing professionals working with them. Now imagine if all schools gave these students the time they needed. A person to talk to who isn’t running off to the next lesson or dealing with another incident. Let’s stop cutting budgets and start giving these vulnerable students what they truly deserve; a friendly face with the time to sit with them.

References

Britton, J., Farquharson, C., & Sibieta, L. (2019). 2019 annual report on education spending in England. Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Children’s Commissioner. (2017). Briefing: Falling through the gaps in education. Children’s Commissioner for England.

Ford, T., Parker, C., & Henley, W. (2017). The relationship between exclusion from school and mental health: A secondary analysis of the British child and adolescent mental health surveys 2004 and 2007. Psychological Medicine, 48(4), 629–641.

Kaip, D., Blackwood, N., Kew-Simpson, S., Wickersham, A., Harvey, J., & Dickson, H. (2024). Educator perceptions of the complex needs of young people in pupil referral units: An exploratory qualitative analysis. PloS One, 19(9), e0310633.

Thompson, I., Tawell, A., & Daniels, H. (2021). Conflicts in professional concern and the exclusion of pupils with SEMH in England. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 26(1), 31–45. Ìý