Exploring primary school Senior Mental Health Leads’ experiences of supporting mental health across a school and wider community: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

The responsibility for schools to support mental health has been on the rise in the past decade. In 2015, the Green Paper, ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision,’ was released. This introduced a variety of initiatives to increase mental health support in schools. One of these initiatives introduced a new role of Senior Mental Health Lead (SMHL). The SMHL is expected to have oversight of a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing, including supporting staff, pupils and the wider community. The experiences of SMHLs have yet to be discovered, as the role is within its infancy. The current research project aimed to explore the experiences of SMHLs, working in mainstream primary schools. The purpose of the study was to highlight the real-life lived experiences of SMHLs, which could be utilised when planning training and support. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five SMHLs, working within one large Local Authority in England. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyse the data. Each participant’s data was analysed to form superordinate themes which were relevant to their individual experience. The superordinate themes were used to form five overarching themes to explore experiences across the whole sample. These themes were: ‘Role and Power’, ‘Whole-School Strategy’, ‘Passion and Pride’, ‘The Wider System’ and ‘Mental Health of SMHL.’ The findings are considered in the context of existing research and the limitations of the study are discussed. The implications for educational psychologists are considered. Suggestions for further research into the role of SMHLs and mental health provision within schools are recommended.