How will mental health and wellbeing be a platform on which the education system will be built, as referenced by the Cabinet Secretary in her statement on 14 May 2024 on delivering Wales's education priorities?
I have been clear for several years now that mental health and wellbeing is essential for our children and young people to help them to learn effectively, cope with day-to-day challenges, and develop into resilient adults.
We have made a good start with our statutory Framework on Embedding a Whole School Approach to Emotional and Mental Wellbeing and also our new curriculum, with its emphasis on becoming 'healthy confident individuals’, through the Health and Wellbeing Area of Learning and Experience. We will build on this throughout the remainder of the current Senedd term by embedding the whole school approach so that it becomes a part of the school culture and ethos and also by strengthening professional learning for the education workforce, including in relation to neurodivergence, child development and the whole system approach to wellbeing. I am also committed to ensuring we fully join up this work with our response to wider challenges in schools such as attendance and behaviour.
I will work together with ministerial colleagues including the Minister for Mental Health and Early Years to ensure a joined up approach across government in supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.