Making the Difference - Breaking the link between school exclusion and social exclusion

A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research in the UK argues that schools should form the first line of intervention with mental health (in the context of physical activity), and listed several advantages of this setting:

• It would improve accessibility (especially for children and young people from hard-to-reach families)
• It would better address school-related stressors that contribute to mental health problems;
• It would significantly ease pressures on specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services;
• It would help to facilitate other component parts of a whole-school approach

Schools offer a valuable setting for supporting students with mental health problems, because they offer an accessible context for physical activity.