Dartford-based charity Walk Tall calls for mental health training for teachers after Thomas Tallis School students told to write suicide letters in English lesson

Walk Tall was prompted to call for the action nationwide after reports of a students at a Kidbrooke school asked to write suicide notes in an English lesson.

FROM JUNE 22: A mum is furious about students being told to write suicide letters at a Kidbrooke school

Mandy Brewster, head of mental health services and tuition at Walk Tall, said there was an 'ongoing problem' of teachers struggling to recognise mental health issues. She said: "As our world is changing the problems children have is changing.

“Teachers don’t often recognise that the children in front of them are suffering from mental health problems.”

Ms Brewster added: “With the best will in the world, teachers are teachers, not mental health practitioners.

"Most teachers don’t have the training to recognise the children in front of them is suicidal.

“Even when teachers realise that children have these problems they don’t know how to deal with them.

“I teach adults how to be counsellors and I wouldn’t even get them to do something like that.”

Walk Tall teaches counsellors to deal with these kinds of problems, but Ms Brewster said she doesn’t believe there is enough emphasis put on training teachers to deal with mental health issues right now.

She said: “We have experience on how these kinds of thing have on young people. This highlights the real need for teachers to have real training on these kind of subjects.

“Absolutely more funds need to be put in to training teachers. Normal teacher training does teach on these kind of things but it’s not nearly enough and the Government really needs to put extra funding into training.”