 Attendance and punctuality. Why does that matter when it comes to a child or a young person's mental health? People are always asking me for easy-to-spot warning signs that might indicate that a child or a young person is in need of support. Many of the people I work with work in schools, really busy environments where you've got hundreds of children that you're looking out for and we need little tell-tale signs that tell us who we need to be honing in on and helping, things that help us pick it up as soon as possible that a young person might need support. One of the key ones I always suggest looking out for is attendance and punctuality. What we're looking for here is change. If a young person previously had good attendance or was punctual and they started to be absent or late more often we should take a step back and be asking what's going on here. Of course, lateness and absenteeism doesn't necessarily mean there's a mental health issue per se but it can often be indicative that there's something going on that a young person needs help with. For example, a young person might be more likely to be late for school if they've taken on additional responsibilities at home. It can sometimes indicate that things are somewhat chaotic in their personal life, for example. It could also indicate that they're finding it hard to get out of the house in the morning. That could be to do with mental health issues like obsessive-compulsive disorder. Perhaps they're having to do lots of checking. Maybe they're returning home whilst they're on the way to school because their obsessions and compulsions are driving them back to do more checking or carry out behaviours. Perhaps they are struggling with food and eating disorder type behaviours. It might be that it takes them a very long time to eat breakfast before they leave the house. It might be that they're doing exercise because they're being driven to do that. It could also be that they are struggling with anxiety and the act of actually leaving the house is very difficult or that school makes them worried. Or maybe they're struggling with depression and low mood and getting out of bed in the morning is really hard. Perhaps their sleep is disturbed. It's been hard for them to get up. There's so many different reasons why young person might be less likely to attend or less likely to attend on time. So the key thing we're really looking for here is change. In schools we're absolutely great at monitoring young people's attendance and their punctuality. They get late marks or absent marks if they're not here. So if a young person's pattern of attendance changes that should be a red flag for us. Like I say it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a problem but it's usually worth having a conversation here. If we're worried our first port of call ought to be to have a non-judgmental conversation with that young person. Reach out to them and say look we noticed that things have changed a little bit lately. Is there anything we can do to support? Of course then we might also look to reach out to their family as well. Find out what's going on. See if there's anything simple that we can do to support. It's important to try and jump onto this early. It can be an early warning sign and if we're able to respond quickly we might be able to support the child or their family before things escalate. The other thing is that sometimes lateness and absence can be quite a big cause for stress for a child and it can mean that things spiral relatively quickly into quite a negative pattern as the lateness, the absence, getting behind on school work can quite quickly add to other anxieties and worries. A final thing is it's really worth having a conversation with your frontline staff. Those staff who meet and greet everybody as they arrive at school and ask them to let you know if they're worried about a child or a young person. What you can easily see is those patterns of lateness and absence which are recorded in the register. What they can tell you that you wouldn't otherwise know about are those young people who arrive just in time or who arrive seeming quite stressed or anxious when they normally haven't seemed that way historically. Your frontline staff are often really, really observant and they will pick up changes in behavior and changes in the pattern of young people arriving at school and if you provide them with the opportunity to share what they're observing, to let you know what their worries are and who they think you need to be following up with, there will be a really great source of information for you. So talk to them, let them help you and use that great information that they're collecting every day. Good luck, I hope it's helpful.