How a new scheme could reverse plummeting school attendance rates and rising pupil anxiety across Scotland

The Haven, a “wellbeing resilience” initiative for young people in the town of Tranent in East Lothian, opened in September last year. Since then, attendance has steadily increased, rising to almost 300 in March alone.

"Even for us, we've sort of been amazed by how high the numbers have been,” said Kirsten Love, a project worker at The Haven, which has been pioneered by the Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity.

Recent studies have highlighted growing concern about the impact of mental health pressures on young people, in some cases made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the influence of social media and the cost-of-living crisis.

A survey by the Scottish Qualifications Authority found 94 per cent of teachers agreed many pupils were now less resilient, while 76 per cent said learners find external assessment more stressful than pre-pandemic cohorts. The issues have also been linked by some to falling attendance rates, and worsening behaviour. The Haven provides support for young people in either group sessions, or on a one-to-one basis, and it also has a “teen hour” and provides family support as well.

It operates out of the Fraser Centre in Tranent on three days a week. Referrals can be made by young people themselves, parents, a school, GP, or third-sector organisations.

Ms Love said: “Initially when we first started out it was all drop-in, but because of the numbers and how busy it was getting, we just realised that that wasn't really possible. So that has caused us to cut down on the drop-ins, and add in the one-to-ones, adding the ‘teen hour’.

“It has allowed us to really shape the service as well. We've been able to adapt to what we've noticed the community actually needs.”

The centre is led by a core team of three workers, including Ms Love.

“I'd say probably overall a lot of what we see is sort of general anxiety, and that is covering quite a wide age group,” she said. “A lot of it is focused around the P7 to high school transition stage as well. That is quite a common demographic that we get in.

“There are also quite a lot of people who have been impacted by grief. So we're not grief counsellors in any way, but I think just sort of the impact grief has had on other aspects of wellbeing, so sort of confidence and isolation. And we do get a lot of young people that are having challenges in school environments.

“Again, we're not education-focused, but it is more just about the actual environment - the classroom causing that anxiety, or exams, or just all the parts of school that makes people feel these things outside of school, and maybe prevents them going to school.

"A lot of time I think it is just a gradual build up, and obviously things like the pandemic and stuff didn't help with any of that, when they were out of school, especially social skills. And I think a lot of it is to do with friendships and friendship fall-outs and things like that.”

Last year, close to a third of pupils in Scotland were persistently absent from school, rising to more than 50 per cent in some areas. Ms Love said there had already been positive results from the team’s work at The Haven.

"We have had young people that have managed to go back to school, folk that weren't attending at all before they started working with us have managed to get back into the school environment,” she said.

“That might be quite a slow transition in - a couple of hours a day, for example - but that is built up over time, which has been really amazing. 

“I know for some of the young people I've been working with, they've been able to come to me and tell me some of the challenges they've been facing in school, which maybe they couldn't say to anyone in school, and then I've been able to pass that on, and maybe that's made a difference.

“And another quite big thing that we've noticed is that a lot of the young people, especially within our teen hour, are coming down and are meeting people in The Haven who they might see in school but don't necessarily know. They are creating those friendships as well, and then that is being carried into school.”

A survey of more than 100 people who used The Haven showed just more than half had no previous contact with mental health services, while 14 per cent were on a waiting list for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

More than 85 per of users of The Haven reported issues with anxiety, two-thirds with depression, and more than a third with school attendance.

"We're not therapists and we're not counsellors, so there is a limit to what we can provide someone,” said Ms Love. “But I think for those that are being referred to CAMHS, and it is a long wait, I think our hope is to bridge to gap over that wait, so they are not left with nothing. Or hope that if it is early enough intervention, we will actually stop the need for CAMHS, depending on what the need is." Ms Love hoped the model of The Haven could provide a blueprint for other parts of Scotland.

"Our goal ultimately is to do that, starting with East Lothian,” she said. “And then go from there, and go into all the Lothians and Edinburgh, and hopefully in an ideal world it's going to spread even further than that.

“Whether we do that ourselves, or whether we do that by other people, I don't know. But I think it's definitely a model that's worth making that effort for.”