Designated Senior Mental Health Lead Course (Three full days plus 1-2-1 session)

Frequently Asked Questions

• How can we use the DfE funding towards this course?

  The DfE have announced that the deadline for eligible Schools and Colleges to claim a £1,200 grant for their Mental Health Lead to attend DfE quality assured training starting, has now been extended to 31st of March 2025. The grant can be used to pay for training starting anytime before the end of March 2025. The training will help your Mental Health Lead develop your setting’s holistic approach to promoting and supporting the mental health and wellbeing of pupils, learners and staff.

  Additionally, if you previously claimed a grant and your trained lead has left your setting before fully implementing a whole school/college approach to mental health, you can also apply for a 2nd grant.

  Further details about Grant eligibility and how to apply for the funding are available on the gov.uk site here. Our highly-acclaimed course meets the DfE’s criteria for the ‘Learning outcomes for senior mental health leads’, and schools and colleges will be able to apply for this course to be fully funded as part of the £1200 grant, and, as our course only costs £520, the remaining £680 is permitted to be used by settings in any of the following ways:

  • For supply cover for the senior mental health lead, should a school or college need to backfill a senior lead while undertaking training

  • To fund further training, activity or resources that supports the development of a senior mental health lead, and contributes to the implementation of an effective whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing in a setting including:

  - Additional courses or coaching that support the further development of the senior mental health lead, enabling them to establish, implement or sustain a whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing

  - External support to assess your existing school or college approach to promoting and supporting mental health, to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement

  - Online resources and toolkits that support the senior lead, or other staff, to embed, sustain or otherwise improve the effectiveness of their whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing (many resources are available for free)

  - Other activities by the senior lead within their setting that focus on raising wider awareness and understanding of their whole school or college approach to better promote and support mental health (eg promotion materials or awareness sessions for education staff) funds can also claim an additional. 

   If you would like to book a DfE funded place on one of the upcoming courses, please follow these steps to ensure you access funding:

  1. Check the eligibility of your school or FE college on the Department for Education’s terms and conditions

  2. Complete the DfE grant funding form.The DfE funding Code for this course is: SMHL018

  3. Book your place on the DSMHL training via our courses page or email us directly if you would prefer to pay via invoice. 

  Once you have booked a place on the course, Schools and Colleges who are eligible to apply for the funding will need to submit proof of booking to the DfE as well as the course code as part of their grant application, The DfE funding Code for this course is: SMHL018. The DfE wishes to reassure learners that your grant is reserved once you’ve successfully completed the first form confirming your eligibility (the DfE has honoured every grant application made, and retrospective payment of grants is normal practice – they are paid at certain dates every 12 weeks).

  For those who wish to book a place without applying for the DfE grant, please simply complete stage 3 above.