Schools must be central to young people's mental health care, says Oxford expert
Professor Mina Fazel is calling for closer cooperation between health and education services
An Oxford University professor says schools should be an integral part of supporting young people's mental health.
Professor Mina Fazel, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of Oxford, contributed to a government-commissioned review into mental health, ADHD and autism.
She says there is strong evidence that young people value the support of school staff.
"Young people are clearly saying that the first people they turn to outside of their family and friends are people in school," Professor Fazel said.
She believes health and education services should work more closely to better support young people.
Rising need with no single cause
Professor Fazel said the review was commissioned to understand why demand for mental health services is growing.
She said its central message is that rising mental health needs cannot be explained by one cause or addressed with one solution.
"It challenges us to rethink how we diagnose and treat young people, how we organise health services, design education environments and support relationships and communities," she said.
The review found more than 560,000 open ADHD referrals and more than 254,000 open autism referrals in England by the end of 2025.
Professor Fazel explained that greater awareness and reduced stigma from social media may be contributing to the rising demand for diagnoses, but are not the only factors.
"While that plays a role, there do seem to be environmental changes that are interacting with predisposing traits that are also driving true increase as well," she said.
Joining up services
Professor Fazel said schools are central to supporting young people, but stressed this does not mean teachers should be responsible for delivering all their care.
"As health professionals, we should pivot more closely towards how do we work with schools. How do we enhance that environment and make sure that this is one ecosystem?" she said.
She added that people working in the area currently attend meetings in education and meetings in health, but rarely bring the two together.
Professor Fazel said another recommendation from the review is to move away from services organised around individual diagnoses.
"We've got the ADHD referral service, the autism referral service, and actually there's so much overlap between many of these conditions," she said.
She said services should consider how to integrate these different pathways, although she acknowledged this would be a complicated challenge.
What happens next?
Professor Fazel said the next wave of the OxWell Student Survey will take place in February and March 2027.
The survey has previously involved thousands of young people, including pupils in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, whose experiences helped inform the national review.
The next survey will allow researchers to explore social media, the digital environment, gender roles and masculinity in greater detail.
Professor Fazel said the findings will continue inform their understanding of young people's needs and will be shared with the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care.