In order to comprehensively strengthen and improve the mental health work of students in the new era and improve their mental health literacy, recently, the Ministry of Education, the Health and Health Commission, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, the Central Network Information Office and other 17 departments jointly issued the "Special Action Plan for Comprehensively Strengthening and Improving the Mental Health Work of Students in the New Era (2023-2025)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan"), proposing that by 2025, the whole country will be equipped with special schools.
The person in charge of the Department of Sports Health and Art Education of the Ministry of Education said that with the rapid economic and social development, the growing environment of students is constantly changing, and the mental health problems of students are more prominent due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. Health education, a collaborative education mechanism between teachers and families, schools and communities, needs to be strengthened urgently. In order to effectively solve these problems, the Action Plan adheres to the basic principles of all-round development, health first, improving ability and systematic governance, and puts forward the goal of improving the "four-in-one" system of students' mental health work, including health education, monitoring and early warning, consulting services and intervention, and improving the pattern of students' mental health work in cooperation with schools, families, society and relevant departments.
The action plan includes eight key tasks: promoting mental health through five kinds of education, strengthening mental health education, standardizing mental health monitoring, improving psychological early warning intervention, building a strong psychological talent team, supporting mental health research, optimizing social psychological services, and creating a healthy growth environment. Among them, all the key tasks put forward some specific requirements, including mental health education in primary and secondary schools combined with related courses; Organize the preparation of mental health reading books for primary and secondary school students; Organize the development of mental health assessment tools that meet the characteristics of children and adolescents in China; Establish a national professional institution for universities, primary schools and secondary schools to study and monitor students' mental health education; Schools regularly carry out mental health assessment of students; County-level education departments should build regional psychological counseling centers for primary and secondary school students; Colleges and universities are equipped with full-time mental health education teachers according to the teacher-student ratio of not less than 1: 4000, each school is equipped with at least 2 teachers, and each school in primary and secondary schools is equipped with at least 1 full-time (part-time) mental health education teachers.
The Action Plan emphasizes the improvement of safeguards for the implementation of the above tasks. First, strengthen organizational leadership, and incorporate students' mental health work into the assessment of the provincial people's government's performance of educational duties, into the overall planning of school reform and development, into the talent training system and the supervision and evaluation index system, as an important part of the assessment of running schools at all levels and the annual assessment of leading bodies. The second is to implement funds, increase overall planning, optimize the expenditure structure, and effectively strengthen the funding guarantee for students' mental health work. The third is to cultivate and popularize experience, support qualified regions and schools to innovate students' mental health work mode, and play a leading and driving role.