About us

What we are about.

Originally recognising a need for the training of Mental Health Aware Leadership, Richard Daniel Curtis set up the Mental Health Awareness Programme in 2018. He started developing the National Educational Leaders in Mental Health for School Leaders who passed an assessment related to their awareness of mental health ethos and culture provision.

As a result of the green paper “Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision” the government committed to providing trained mental health leads in schools. With the announcement of the mental health lead role from the Department of Education, Richard developed training for mental health leads. This in turn lead to the creation of the National Network of Mental Health Leads in 2021.

The courses became more formalised, leading to qualifications and became the core of the Network. Richard recognised that the role would be very isolating and so there was a need for continued personal development opportunities for people who were being trained as a mental health lead. This led to the Network being established as a consortium of Local Authorities and Providers across the country in order to be able to not only provide training for mental health leads but provide ongoing support, information and guidance.

As the DfE’s programme of mental health lead training progressed, reflecting the needs of the sector the Committee members of the National Network of Mental Health Leads recognised the need to open membership up to a wider cohort of members. Therefore, the Association of Mental Health in Education was formally launched in 2024, representing those working in schools, colleges, universities, adult education and early years providers and giving them much needed support and guidance.