HMN 2026: How School-based screening and support can help reduce anxiety in young children

A new online system delivered through primary schools has been shown to be significantly more effective than standard school provision in reducing anxiety among young children. The researchers say their “screening to intervention” approach, which has been trialed in 84 primary schools in England, reduces the “child anxiety treatment gap,” enabling more children to get timely and effective support.

In the randomized controlled trial, which was led by the University of Oxford and included Dr. Victoria Williamson from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, children were screened for anxiety problems using a questionnaire delivered to parents through schools.

Of the 409 who screened positive for anxiety problems, around half were given support using a parent-led Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-based (CBT) online support tool called Online Support and Intervention (OSI), while the other half received the regular school provision, which varied widely in both type and extent. The children’s anxiety levels were then checked at four, 12 and 24 months.

The study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, found that 61% of children allocated to the intervention no longer had anxiety problems after 12 months, as reported by their parents, compared to 38% in the control group. Teachers also reported anxiety had a lower impact in the classroom up to two years after the intervention was delivered.

Dr. Williamson helped design how the study’s online tool was delivered by collaborating with parents, children, teachers and schools to ensure the support offered was appropriate for young children and would make a genuine difference.

She said, “This study shows how powerful it is to design support in collaboration with the families, children and schools it’s meant to help.

“By grounding the work in real-world experiences, we’ve developed approaches that are more relevant, accessible and more likely to make a meaningful difference.

“It also highlights just how important it is to intervene early when children first begin to experience anxiety, so we can prevent difficulties from becoming more persistent and harder to manage.

“I hope these findings lead to wider adoption of accessible, evidence-based support in schools and communities, ensuring more children get the well-being support they need, when they need it.”

Dr. Tessa Reardon, lead author from Oxford’s Departments of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology, said, “This trial provides robust evidence that screening for anxiety problems in primary schools, then sharing screening outcomes with families, and offering CBT delivered in an accessible way via online and telephone support for parents, reduces child anxiety problems and brings wider clinical benefits for these families.”

Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health problems faced by children. If left untreated, they can severely impact social development, well-being and educational attainment. While cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment, few children can access it due to high demands on mental health services.

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