Department for Education (DfE) officials appear to have been working to sack Natasha Devon, the government’s schools’ mental health champion, over her criticism of government policies even as they publicly denied doing so, according to internal emails obtained by Devon.
Devon, who was dropped from her role after she repeatedly argued that the government’s own education policies were contributing to poor mental health among young people, said the DfE emails confirmed her fears that the department had been trying to silence her.
In March, two months before her role was axed, one DfE official wrote that although they wanted to avoid the appearance that the department was dropping her because of her criticism, “it cannot be feasible that she continues”.
In another email a month later, an official writes: “Every day is another day she could be saying something damaging – and if that happens we will kick ourselves for not acting sooner.” But after the Guardian broke the news that Devon would be axed, she received a text that read: “What the Guardian have printed is ludicrous – We want to work with you more, not less!”
After reading the emails, Devon said they showed that the government’s policies on children’s mental health was little more than “a PR exercise” and confirmed her fears at the time that the department had been trying to silence her.
She said the emails revealed a government more worried about her comments on Twitter than the crisis in mental health among young people. “I can’t believe the ineptitude,” she said. “It’s like a script from [the BBC political satire] The Thick of It.”
Devon, who was appointed with some fanfare by the government in August 2015 to raise awareness of and reduce the stigma surrounding young people’s mental health, put in a subject access request to see government emails concerning her role after her dismissal in May.
At one point one official exclaims: “I know I keep saying this but please can everyone monitor her Twitter?”
Elsewhere the tone changes. After the news broke that her role was being cut, one DfE email read: “I think we now need to take ND down a peg or two.” A couple of days later, another said: “She is having her fifteen minutes and hopefully she is nearly at the end.”
Devon, who has almost a decade of experience of working in schools as the founder of the Self-Esteem Team and Body Gossip which deliver mental health education to young people, said her experience of working with government had “played havoc” with her own mental health.
When she was appointed she was told it was an important role – though unpaid to ensure impartiality – and would give her an opportunity to influence policy. In the end, it was “window dressing”, to help the government get coverage on GMTV and in other lifestyle media, she said.
Though Devon was hired because of her ability to talk to young people, department officials objected to her choice of language on social media.
When she uses the word “dickwad” in response to a story about a young woman being bullied for speaking out about sexism, one DfE email reads: “It is obviously totally unacceptable for a government-endorsed champion to swear and use offensive terms as she does … I have just called Natasha and she was surprisingly unapologetic.”Asked on Friday to respond to the internal emails and Devon’s criticism of the government’s policies on young people’s mental health, a DfE spokesperson said: “Natasha did a great job of helping us to raise the profile of young people’s mental health during her appointment.
“Since that time, the independent NHS taskforce report has been published which recommended that a cross-government mental health champion be created – for this reason we had to reconsider the department’s own role.”
Devon has now compiled a comprehensive report on children’s and young people’s mental health based on what she uncovered during her nine-month tenure as government mental health champion and her own work in schools.
She said of the government’s approach to young people’s mental health: “They talk a good game but they don’t get it. There was no real understanding of the severity of the situation. They would say the words, but I did not feel there was any kind of urgency.”
DfE emails show officials wanted to silence mental health tsar
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