Across Europe, there is an implicit expectation that schools will absorb an expanding range of responsibilities. Academic instruction is no longer sufficient; schools are now expected to address emotional wellbeing, behavioural regulation, social inclusion, digital literacy, and, increasingly, mental health prevention.
On paper, this seems efficient. Schools are universal, structured, and already embedded in children’s daily lives. In practice, however, this expectation is creating a structural overload that is rarely acknowledged with sufficient clarity.
The Healthy Mind, Healthy Child (HMHC) project challenges a widely accepted but weak assumption: that schools, as currently designed, can function as the primary delivery system for children’s mental health.
They cannot—not without significant transformation.
This position is consistent with the broader principles promoted by the European Commission within frameworks such as CERV, where the emphasis is placed on systemic, rights-based, and multi-actor approaches. Mental health, within this perspective, is not a sectoral issue to be assigned to education alone. It is a cross-cutting responsibility that requires coordination across environments.
Yet, in practice, schools continue to operate as the default intervention space.
From a structural standpoint, this creates several tensions. Teachers are expected to identify emotional difficulties, manage increasingly complex classroom dynamics, and provide support to students with diverse needs. However, most of them have not received specialised training in mental health or trauma-informed practices. Even when training exists, it is often theoretical, fragmented, or disconnected from the realities of classroom environments.
The result is predictable. Teachers operate in a constant state of compensation, attempting to respond to needs that exceed their role, their training, and their available time.
This is not a criticism of teachers—it is a design problem.
From a neuroeducational perspective, the mismatch becomes even more evident. Emotional regulation, stress response, and relational patterns are not primarily formed within school hours. They are shaped through repeated interactions across contexts, particularly within families and peer environments. By the time difficulties become visible in the classroom, they are often already consolidated.
Expecting schools to reverse these patterns in isolation is unrealistic.
At the same time, there is a tendency to interpret behavioural or emotional difficulties in academic terms. A child who is disengaged, disruptive, or inattentive is often framed as having a “learning problem,” when in reality the underlying issue may be emotional dysregulation, unresolved stress, or lack of relational stability.
This misinterpretation leads to interventions that address symptoms rather than causes.
The HMHC project proposes a different approach. Instead of positioning schools as the centre of intervention, it places them as one node within a broader ecosystem that includes families, extracurricular environments, and community actors. The objective is not to reduce the role of schools, but to align it with what they can realistically and effectively do.
Within this framework, schools have three critical functions.
First, they are observation spaces. Teachers are often among the first adults outside the family to detect changes in behaviour, mood, or interaction patterns. This position is valuable, but only if it is supported by clear protocols and referral pathways. Without these, observation does not translate into effective action.
Second, schools are relational environments. The quality of teacher-student interactions can act as a protective factor, particularly for children in vulnerable situations. However, this requires conditions that allow for meaningful relationships to develop. Overcrowded classrooms, rigid curricula, and performance pressures limit this potential.
Third, schools are coordination points. They can connect different actors—families, social services, mental health professionals—but only if systems are designed to facilitate this coordination. In many cases, this infrastructure is either weak or non-existent.
The problem, therefore, is not that schools are irrelevant. It is that they are overburdened and under-supported.
This has direct implications for inclusion, one of the core priorities within CERV. When schools are expected to manage diversity without adequate resources or systemic support, inclusion becomes superficial. Students with higher needs—whether emotional, social, or cognitive—are present in the system, but not fully integrated into it.
Inclusion, in this context, risks becoming a statistical achievement rather than a lived reality.
HMHC addresses this by advocating for a redistribution of responsibility. Mental health support must be embedded across environments, not concentrated in one. This includes:
- Strengthening family capacity
- Enhancing the role of extracurricular spaces
- Improving coordination between services
- Providing targeted support where needed
This approach is more complex, but also more aligned with how development actually occurs.
There is, however, a barrier that needs to be acknowledged. Systems tend to favour simplicity. Assigning responsibility to a single institution—such as schools—is administratively convenient. Distributed models require coordination, communication, and sustained investment. They are harder to implement.
But avoiding complexity does not eliminate it. It only displaces it.
The current model, where schools are expected to compensate for systemic gaps, is already showing its limits. Teacher burnout, increasing behavioural challenges, and widening gaps in student wellbeing are not isolated issues. They are indicators of a system operating beyond its designed capacity.
From a strategic perspective, continuing along this path is inefficient.
The HMHC project does not propose removing mental health from schools. It proposes situating it correctly—within a network of environments that collectively shape children’s development.
This shift is not optional if the objective is to move from reactive to preventive approaches. Schools can play a central role, but they cannot carry the system alone.
Ultimately, if European frameworks are serious about promoting children’s rights, inclusion, and wellbeing, then the distribution of responsibility must reflect the complexity of the problem.
Because expecting schools to solve what is fundamentally a systemic issue is not a solution. It is a way of postponing it.