Headucation Schools

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Top 10 Children’s Mental Health Resources

Children’s mental health has never been more critical. We’ve just been through an extraordinary worldwide event, children have been thrown in and out of their routines and kept away from their friends.

Even before all of this, children’s mental health was a serious matter with 1 in 6 school-aged children experiencing a mental health problem. So let’s make sure we’re here to support them by reducing mental health stigma, encouraging kids to talk about mental health and providing early intervention for mental health conditions.

As part of our #Headucation2025 campaign, Shawmind is committed to train 150,000 teachers in the UK in the basics of mental health support to enable them to act as mental health first responders in schools and classrooms.

Alongside this larger campaign, we want to share as much advice and knowledge as we can to support children’s mental health. Here are our top 10 favourite mental health resources that you can use at home or at school to educate and support children.

1. Children’s Mental Health Books From Trigger Publishing

Trigger Publishing have created a selection of fun, illustrated children’s books about mental health that can be used both by children on their own and by adults as a way to start a conversation about mental health.

2. Sock It To Stigma Mental Health Resources

Every February at Shawmind, we celebrate #SockItToStigma. A month where we focus on reducing the stigma around mental health in schools and workplaces. We have developed a pack of classroom resources (including wordsearches and colouring sheets) that engage children in the conversation about mental health. Download your free mental health resources.

3.“We All Have Mental Health” Video

This video, created by the Anna Freud Centre, is a great way to explain mental health and reduce the stigma surrounding it. “We All Have Mental Health” is a 5 minute animated video that tells the story of school children struggling with mental health – it is so effective it is often used in adult mental health training too.

4. MeeToo Peer Support App

MeeToo is an anonymous free service for young people aged 11+ to discuss anything that’s troubling them, including mental health. The app is a safe space where users can get peer support from those of a similar age and experience. All posts and replies are checked before going live so there is no harassment, bullying or grooming. The MeeToo app also has an internal directory linking to mental health helplines and resources.

5. Childline “For Me” App

A great option for those who are too young to join MeeToo, the Childline “For Me” app allows children to create their own mood journal, start confidential chats directly with a counsellor and access lots of games and support resources.

6. Fink Cards

Fink Cards are a set of question cards designed to help children answer questions about mental health that will help them learn about common mental health conditions, how to maintain good mental health and how to seek mental health support. These cards were developed by Place2Be, a leading children’s mental health charity.

7.Anna Freud #SelfcareSummer Packs

The Anna Freud Centre have developed #SelfcareSummer packs for primary and secondary school children. These packs are free to download and contain a series of activities to help young people understand, evaluate and maintain their own mental health.

8.Stress Relieving Activities from Calm Zone

Calm Zone, created by Childline, contains a wide range of activities to help children let go of stress. These include breathing exercises, mental health tools, and games they can play.

9.YoungMinds Mental Health Guides

YoungMinds, a national young people’s mental health charity, have created a series of mental health guides. These are great resources for teenagers who want education or support around a wide range of mental health challenges including how to talk to friends about mental health, gender and mental health, and drugs.

10.The Mix Mental Health Support

The Mix is a service that provides under 25’s with support and advice across a number of different areas. They have a great selection of mental health support resources including articles, a helpline and a chat service.

Mental health is as important to a child’s safety and wellbeing as their physical health. It can impact on all aspects of their life, including their educational attainment, relationships and physical wellbeing. So let’s look after it.

Support our mission to train teachers in the basics of mental health so that they can act as mental health first responders for schoolchildren. Donate now or purchase one of our training packages (all proceeds go to Headucation 2025).

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Signs of anxiety to look out for in children

Anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness or fear that, in many situations, is normal to experience – however when you feel this way most of the time it can be debilitating and massively impact how you function on a day-to-day basis.

As adults, it can be incredibly difficult to identify and manage anxiety. So, just imagine what it feels like for a child who is struggling with anxiety themselves.

What factors put children more at risk of anxiety?

While anxiety can arise for seemingly no reason, there are some situations that more often lead to children developing anxiety:

  • Bullying
  • Abuse
  • Bereavement
  • Substance abuse
  • Divorce or difficult home situation (e.g., frequent arguments between parents)
  • Moving house or school
  • Pre-existing conditions such as ADHD or autism

Signs of anxiety in children

With children spending seven hours a day at school, here are some signs of anxiety that teachers should look out for:

  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Poor performance
  • Feeling tired
  • Change in eating habits
  • Easily angered or irritated
  • Frequent toilet visits
  • Constant worrying and negative thoughts
  • Complaining of physical pain like stomach aches and headaches
  • Emotional outbursts (e.g., crying or tantrums)
  • Being clingy
  • Disruptive behaviour

What to do if a child in your class has anxiety

  • Have someone in the school start a conversation with them – preferably a teacher or teaching assistant with mental health first aid or ELSA training
  • Talk openly about anxiety in the classroom to reduce the stigma around mental health – you can use our Sock It To Stigma classroom materials to help you
  • Talk to the child’s parents and refer them to professional support if appropriate

According to the latest research, one in six UK school children have a probable mental health disorder. Aside from parents, teachers are the adults that children spend most of their time with during the day. It is crucial that anyone who works with children can recognise the signs that a child may be struggling with their mental health and, more importantly, that they know how to take appropriate action. But with no compulsory mental health training, this task can feel overwhelming and difficult.

Our Headucation 2025 campaign aims to train 150,000 teachers in the basics of mental health support by 2025. Your school could be eligible for fully-funded mental health training. Get in touch with our team to find out more.

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Children and teachers must be given the opportunity to tell their stories…

After a second period of Covid lockdown, seeing children being educated at home and online for nearing 3 months, schools began to unlock on Monday 8th March.  Of course, schools have remained open to support the learning of vulnerable children and children of key workers throughout both lockdowns, but it is the return of all children to school that has caused concern amongst the teaching profession and reminders of the previous return to school potentially being the catalyst for a spiralling of Covid cases nationally.

This unlocking of schools has been paralleled with repeated rhetoric from the DfE and the Secretary of State about just how vital it is that children ‘catch up’ on missed learning with the notion that children are falling behind being a key driver for the wider opening of schools and a simultaneous refusal to budge on the idea that teachers should be vaccinated ahead of the unlocking of schools. Such activity and discourse leading to media headlines social media discourse around the safety of children returning en masse to their school settings and no doubt increased anxiety and concern for children, parents and teachers alike for a variety of reasons.

The rush for children to ‘catch up’ has led to schools receiving money from the DfE (note this is not significant and is less than the loss many schools have suffered in the movement of the funding window for Pupil Premium) to pay for additional tutoring for children to make sure they catch up as soon as possible has been mirrored by schools spending time to devise and share a new ‘catch-up curriculum’, assessing newly formed gaps and re-arranging their curricular to plug these gaps.  A new requirement exists to share such approaches on the school website!

Something that has been missing from these messages is who are the children trying to catch up with?  Surely, if everyone is behind then there is no one in front?  This is something that the DfE seems to misunderstand.

The push for a catch up totally misses the point and shows a distinct lack of understanding about how children develop and learn.  It is an indisputable fact that children have been away from school for a long time over the past year, and that this will result in them being unable to be taught the content of the curriculum at the pace at which teachers have to march through it.  But to focus on academic catch up is not an immediate priority, we would argue, and we are sure that many school teachers and leaders would agree, that re-socialisation and re-integration into the school community is the most important focus.

Children have been away from friends and teachers for a significant amount of time, with some not being able to engage face to face with anyone of their age range at all.  They need to get used to doing this once again.  Teachers may find that the children returning to school are not the same children as those who left for their Christmas holidays.  Each child has had a unique experience of lockdown; some more positive than others.  Children will be returning to school with differing needs, be physically different having potentially lacked exercise and movement over the time at home, with some often not getting out of bed or off the sofa for hours on end and may struggle to sit at a desk for long periods of time initially.  Some children will have suffered illness, trauma and bereavement during their time in lockdown in a variety of situations and circumstances with such experiences increasing levels of anxiety and negative mental health.

Wellbeing and mental health are the first priorities upon the children’s return, academic catch up is secondary to this.  Making time and creating space for children to tell their stories is vital. There are many stories and these should be allowed, and encouraged to be told as part of children’s coming to terms with their experiences.

Of course, it is not only the children who will return to school with stories and experiences. The teachers themselves will have had their own lockdown experiences to deal with: challenging working spaces, home schooling, illness, bereavement…. all having an impact on teacher mental health and wellbeing. It is the role of school leaders to make spaces and time available to hear the stories of their staff and support them as they transition back to whole class teaching in the continuing pandemic situation, still many being unvaccinated.

But in the telling of these stories, teachers and school leaders must refrain from seeing just the negative impacts of the lockdown on their children and explore and celebrate the positives, of which there are quite a few.  Many children have had the opportunity of enjoying time with their family and re-connecting with parents and siblings.  There are so many photos and posts around children utilising the allowance to exercise by taking walks and bike rides and spending time in nature, something that they often do not make, or have the time for when in school, especially with the dark winter mornings and evenings.  We have seen multiple posts from children and schools around the amazing work that children have been undertaking at home and in their communities; creative projects, arts and cookery, with children learning and developing new skills that will help them as they move forward into their lives.

It is now over to schools to acknowledge the positives that the children bring as well as ensuring that the children’s wellbeing and mental health is supported through ensuring that mental health is threaded through the curriculum and that there are spaces and opportunities to monitor, talk about and support children’s mental health.

It is over to school leaders to ensure that the pressures of academic catch up and reporting does not significantly add to the stresses and workload of a profession already at breaking point.  School leaders must take this opportunity to pause and reflect upon the practices introduced and undertaken during this pandemic and the lockdown periods assessing the elements that were most challenging and need to return to ‘normal’ but also embracing and continuing with the elements and practices that had to be introduced but have seen improvement and benefits to the working lives of teachers and the experiences of the school community.  PPA at home, a significant reduction in the number of meetings, a change in the approach and regularity of lesson observation and monitoring and the possibility of more flexible working.

The teaching profession must seize this moment.  This moment to reflect on the positive changes that they wish to make, the practices that they want to keep and the practice and processes that can improve teacher workload, wellbeing and mental health.

Teachers and leaders must also seize this moment where children have through not being able to attend school, seen the true value of that place called school; not simply as a place to earn ‘stuff’ but the holistic value that school brings to their lives.

Alongside this, we must seize this moment when parents have had first-hand experience of just how challenging teaching children is and parents who have seen how hard teachers work, the knowledge and skills they possess in order to educate our children.

But most of all we must seize this moment to re-align the priorities of our schools to take an honest look at the impact that the dominant education culture and system has had upon the mental health and wellbeing of its children and its teachers.  We have the moment now. We must act on this positively and bravely to keep the momentum going in the right direction.

Catherine Carden is Faculty Director of Learning & Teaching, Canterbury Christchurch University. She writes in her personal capacity.

 

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How mental health affects education

NHS research suggests that 1 in 6 UK school children struggle with mental health. Mental health challenges make it difficult for children to achieve high grades, form friendships and make positive choices that can impact the rest of their lives.

Traditionally, educators have focused on improving ‘academic excellence’ – which of course is still a primary objective for schools. However, given how much of their lives children spend in an education setting, shouldn’t the focus also be on improving their overall wellbeing?

This is what our #Headucation campaign aims to address.

Mental health & academic performance

Many children actually achieve low grades because their mental health challenges cause:

  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Lack of optimism
  • Difficulty sleeping

All of which makes it hard to focus on school work and put in their best effort. So if you want to improve grades, you need to make sure each child’s mental health is taken care of.

That’s not to say that only low-performing children are struggling with mental health – many high performing students struggle with stress, anxiety and other challenges brought on by their high workloads. These children are at risk of burning out or turning to risky methods of release such as substance abuse or gang-crime.

Mental health & behaviour

Children who struggle with their mental health can be prone to irritability, emotional outbursts, aggressive behaviours or boredom that leads to disobedience and disruption. Children exhibiting these behavioural issues are often punished with detentions or suspensions to reduce the risk of disrupting other students.

Behavioural problems caused by mental health challenges make it difficult for children to form relationships with their classmates – especially when school leaders separate them from the rest of the children.

Friendships and connections with classmates can improve academic performance, understanding of the subject, teamwork skills and self-esteem. Ideally, schools should work on children’s mental health challenges that are leading to behavioural problems in the first place before removing the children from what can be a highly-beneficial classroom setting.

Mental health & school attendance

For many children, struggles with mental health cause them to skip school or call in with physical illnesses. The stress and anxiety caused by workload, peer groups and social pressures can be overwhelming for anyone – let alone a schoolchild.

Similarly, the stigma that still exists around mental health problems can lead to bullying (or the fear of it) in children that have identified and acknowledged their mental health challenges.

If children don’t feel mentally well enough to attend their lessons in the first place, how are they meant to get an education?

How can schools help with mental health?

Spot signs of mental health struggles

Teachers spend a lot of time with children during the week, during that time they should be on the lookout for signs of mental health problems. Some common signs of mental health challenges in children are:

  • Tiredness
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Lack of confidence
  • Reduced socialising
  • Big changes in weight
  • Losing interest in things they used to enjoy
  • Frequent absences
  • Complaints of physical pain like headaches and stomach-aches

Reduce mental health stigma

To encourage children to come forward when they are struggling and to reduce bullying that occurs when they do, schools need to reduce the stigma around mental health. We have many guides and activities that you can use for children of all ages to help them understand mental health and start conversations without fear of judgement.

Trigger Publishing also have a great selection of children’s books to teach them about mental health.

Mental health training for teachers

With teachers expected to be the mental health first responder in the classroom, school leaders should make sure they train teachers in the basics of mental health to be able to more easily spot the warning signs and provide appropriate support.

Shawmind is dedicating itself to training 151,000 teachers by 2025 in the basics of mental health support at no cost to the school. That means we aim to equip mental health first responders who will reach 2.5-million school children. If you’re a teacher or school leader interested in mental health training, get in touch with us.

We need the support of local communities and businesses to help fund this training. It costs just £5 per child to train a teacher in the basics of mental health support – imagine the difference you could make by donating or booking one of our mental health training courses.

 

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Teachers’ journey throughout the pandemic

What was going through your head when the first lockdown was announced? I know my first questions were ‘How long will we be in this lockdown for?’ and ‘When will I be able to see my friends again?’ But then I realized there would be some people out there that had a lot worse things to worry about, ‘Will I lose my job?’, ‘Will I be able to pay my rent this month?’, so really, I didn’t have it bad at all. But after hearing about all the children being taken out of the classroom and thrown into online learning, my thinking changed: 

‘What did our teachers have to go through?’ ‘What was is like to be a teacher during the pandemic?’ ‘How did teachers manage their wellbeing during all of this?’

 

When the first lockdown was announced

I personally heard people say negative things about teachers when the first lockdown was announced, but I think those people may have been too quick to judge. We forget sometimes that teachers are human beings just like you and me. Teachers have fears, stresses, anxiety; and they have other family members to take care of too, just like everyone else. They also don’t work the standard 9-5 that people assume they do. They start early in the morning, finish sometimes late into the evening, and even then, they take their worries and stresses about their pupils home with them. For many, teaching is a calling and not just a job.

I spoke with head teacher Kelly MacKay who, in January, was dealing with flooding in her local area, on top of her duties as head teacher of a primary school. Then, shortly after the flooding chaos, she was hit with the lockdown announcement. As head teacher, the first thing Kelly had to do was prepare the staff and parents for the pandemic. Remote learning had to be put in place, parents had to be notified of the changes that would be taking place, at the same time Kelly still had to conduct her normal head teacher duties. 60% of primary school parents across the UK later reported that they were struggling with the remote learning, so getting this system working as smoothly as possible added to the stress and pressure that Kelly, like so many other head teachers, was placed under. Not only that, but also wellbeing training had to be put in place so that the teachers could still do their job effectively and stay well mentally and emotionally. Kelly’s school managed to provide their students with remote learning within one week of the announcement. Amazing!

Switching to remote learning

After speaking with author, part-time lecturer and former head teacher David Gumbrell, I have realized that one positive thing that came from the pandemic for teachers is that the relationships between themselves and other teachers became so much stronger. There was the realization that the connectedness between staff members was what made remote learning work. They had to be resilient and work together as a team to be able to do their jobs successfully.

I think I can speak for most people when I say we all have some sort of routine we each follow day in day out. Having a routine gives us feelings of safety and security. When teachers had to go from face-to-face learning to remote learning, a whole new routine had to be created for themselves and for their students. David came up with a strategy to break up his lectures while still providing work for his students. This was so important because the students were getting the education they needed as well as having breaks in between to support their wellbeing and carry on interactively with their class. Throughout the pandemic it is so important to create strategies and routines. One strategy David kindly shared with me was simple: self-compassion. He informed other teachers that they had to take care of themselves first to be able to help and teach their students successfully. Self-compassion is composed of three parts: self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness. These three parts mean that you are understanding and kind to yourself, you realize you aren’t the only one that feels pain and then overcoming your pain and suffering through mindfulness. Self-compassion is all about loving yourself through the pain and suffering you are feeling.

Preparation strategy

Many people have some sort of mental health related issue at some point in their lives, and teachers are no exception. So imagine how the pandemic has affected the number of those teachers who might have already been suffering with anxiety and stress for example, before the pandemic. The government provided funding for teachers to help their student’s mental health but, how are teachers supposed to provide their students with help when they themselves are struggling? We need to help our teachers with their wellbeing so that they can help their students – our next generation! It has been proven that children mirror the behaviours of their role models and those they spend a vast majority of their time with; we need our teachers to be happy and mentally & emotionally healthy so that children can mirror their positivity.

Adam Parkes, who specializes in teacher wellbeing kindly shared with me one of his strategies for helping teachers during the pandemic. He told the teachers that he works with to ‘visualize the worst-case scenario’. This may sound counter-intuitive, but everything else that then happens instead will seem like a bonus! And ‘Prepare to test positive for COVID-19.’ By following this advice, teachers could then plan and prepare to work remotely and would already have everything in place to carry on, should COVID strike.

 

Support our teachers

Steve Waters, a former teacher who is now working with schools to create strategies for teacher wellbeing, says that in a recent poll of head teachers in the UK, a staggering 47% said that they were planning to leave their jobs after the pandemic. We were already in need of teachers and the pandemic has now compounded the problem. It has really caused teachers to view their jobs in a completely different light. According to Steve, the way that schools and their results are being inspected during the pandemic really needs to be re-considered as it is driving our teachers to leave their jobs which will then have a massive negative impact on the education of our next generation.

As Adam Parkes said, ‘Don’t let our teachers feel like they are pawns in a game.’ Don’t forget that teachers are just human beings like you and me, they are going through the exact same stresses caused by the pandemic, that you and I may share, on top of giving your children and everyone else’s children the education they need and deserve.

Resilience, self-compassion, connectedness, kindness, flexibility, active listening and expecting the unexpected. These are all things teachers have had to learn and apply to their everyday life whilst still coping with the already-present stresses of the teaching. We need to support our teachers now more than ever!

– Shawmind aims to train 151,000 teachers in the basics of mental health support over the next 5 years – you can help us achieve this goal!

 

 

Article written for Shawmind by Angelica Shaw

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Our Teacher Mental Health Training Campaign – Headucation 2025

Shawmind is a young charity on a mental health mission. In 2017 Shawmind raised 103,000 signatures to get the important issue of children’s mental health debated in Parliament – the result of which has seen children’s mental health education being made compulsory from the 2020 school year.

This is a great outcome, especially considering that 75% of diagnosable mental health conditions present before a person’s 18th birthday.

Unfortunately, the job is not yet done.

There are around 500,000 teachers in the UK, most of whom receive no mental health training as a standard part of their teacher training. These teachers are expected not only to deliver the new mental health curriculum, but also to be the mental health first responder in the classroom – a role many feel wholly under-equipped to perform.

That is why Shawmind is dedicating itself to training 151,000 teachers over the next 5 years in the basics of mental health support. That means we aim to equip mental health first responders who will reach 2.5-million school children!

It costs just £5 per child to train a teacher in the basics of mental health support.  This Christmas, give a school child the present of a teacher trained in mental health… Buy a pack of our charity Christmas cards for just £5, or if you wish to simply donate to the project, you can do so here – all proceeds from the sale of our Christmas cards go to our teacher mental health training project.

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What Back to School Means for Kids in 2020

This first full week in September has meant the return to school for millions of children in England after a six-month lockdown.

For those who are starting at a new school there will be all the usual pressures of making new friends and familiarising themselves with new surroundings.

In addition, the class of 2021 is now catching up on the predicted shortfall in learning, dealing with the mental health implications of the lockdown, handling the subsequent social distancing rules and the fact that they are going back to school amid a pandemic.

What’s the good news?

Schools have been working hard during the lockdown, teaching those pupils who still came in, preparing and delivering teaching resources for pupils learning from home and putting in place all manner of processes and safety measures to enable students to return this week.

In addition, this new cohort of children and teenagers are the first to benefit from mental health and wellbeing being introduced into the curriculum.

This means that teachers and other school support staff will not only be openly discussing mental health in the classroom, but they will be more aware of what to look for in pupils who might need additional support in this area.

Pupils will be learning more about how to build their own resilience and develop more complex coping strategies, which should stand them in good stead for better mental health and wellbeing throughout their lives.

Shawmind, which was instrumental in getting the initial debate on mental health education in schools tabled in Parliament in 2017, is committed to providing additional training to teachers.

In fact, we’re running a fundraising campaign right now, Give Five, Save Lives, to raise the necessary funds to train additional teachers across the country.

If you’re a teacher interested in mental health training, please contact us to discuss your specific needs.

Mental Health Training for Families

We’ve spent lockdown devising a range of mental health training resources for children, teenagers and their parents and we’re proud to introduce our Monkey Wisdom courses.

If you would like to get a free taster of what the courses have to offer please visit our YouTube channel and watch Tana Macpherson-Smith deliver a session for teenagers and parents.

Click here to find out more about the full courses: https://shawmind.org/online-training-children-mental-health/

Back to School Giveaway

In partnership with Trigger Publishing, the UK’s leading mental health and wellbeing publisher, we have been giving away copies of Superheroes Don’t Get Scared and My Mindful Journal to competition winners via our social media pages.

Three winners have already got their copies – just head to our Facebook or Twitter accounts to find out more and to take part.

The competition ends on Tuesday 22nd September 2020.

Free Mental Health Guides

A range of mental health guides are available to download for free from our website and cover all the basics when it comes to a mental health disorder. Our guides are approved by a qualified mental health practitioner.

Head over here for your free guides: https://shawmind.org/our-mental-health-guides/

Volunteer Support

If you need to access our support services, please get in touch to talk to us today. If you need to talk, we’re here to listen.

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Studying, Strategies and Staying Mentally Healthy

I’ve been a student for 7 years post high school. Studying both in my home town of Worthing and London, and now starting a Masters course in Brighton.

It’s been an enjoyable experience, meeting new people and learning new things. But it hasn’t always been easy.

Living with many mental health challenges and a chronic pain condition can be a challenge, especially if you are starting on a higher education journey.

Here’s some of my top tips that you could apply to make your time studying that little bit less stressful!

Note: There is no one size fits all approach to main ting good mental health, it’s about finding what works for you and seeking professional help and support if appropriate.

  1. Freshers: Go at your own pace. There will be lots of events and it’s a busy time of the year. People enrolling, getting used to their new study places and meeting course and flat mates. It’s important you go at a pace that suits you and you know you can handle without it being overwhelming.
  2. Learn to say no. During freshers or even group collaborative tasks. If you feel like things are getting too much or you are being held responsible for something that is meant to be collaborative effort, then speak up.
  3. You do you. Uni and college is a place to find out your own identity, and affirm it. Own it. It is a journey of self discovery and one that will stay with you forever, find what excites you. Find what makes you tick. Find what helps you when you are having a rough time. Find yourself. As when we are able to be our most authentic selves, great things can happen!
  4. Find your tribe. There are lots of different people at universities and colleges, from all kinds of backgrounds, cultures, genders, ethnicities and subject disciplines. Societies are a great way of meeting people with similar interests to yourself. Finding a group who you click with is important as we all need people to help us along our journey, and to have a bit of fun with too!
  5. Set yourself a schedule to stay organised. If you have a lot of deadlines (yes… be prepared!) then it’s a good idea to give yourself the time and space for not only out of lecture study, but for total relaxation too. Having at least one day to switch off a week is so important as it gives you time to focus on your mental health, what’s important to you and maintaining a good work life balance.
  6. Make a support list. On your phone, in a notepad, even a poster on a wall. Writing down any people who you can go to for support is important as if you are having difficulty or feeling as if you need to reach out, having these contacts easily available will take the pressure of searching. These contacts could be support workers at your university, your GP or local charities in your area.

Most importantly, my top tip is to recognise and acknowledge that you don’t have to know exactly what you want to do with your life as soon as you get to uni.

When I started I had no clue what I wanted to do but in the end, after a few years of searching, finding my tribe and allowing myself a good work/life balance, I made the decision to pursue becoming a college/uni teacher and community artist and found that this career path suited me as I could give back and give others a chance to express themselves through creative theatre education!

Going to university can give you so many different experiences and options for your future. And it’s okay to try all of these out.

So thats just a short list of some of my top tips.

Enjoy your uni experience, try your best as your besties good enough, and remember that mental Health doesn’t have to stop you or hold you back!

– Claudia

Claud is a creative educator, theatre artist and mental health and disability advocate with a passion for inspiring others to reach their potential.

 

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Teaching Mental Health Education, Are We Ready?

There has been great progress in the narrative surrounding mental health and education and it is wonderful that Shawmind, through their tremendous Headucation campaign in 2017, achieved the compulsory teaching of mental health in schools from September 2020.

But this seismic change has taken time to evolve.

When I started in the profession in the 1990s my history of anxiety and anorexia needed to stay firmly hidden away. Yet today, when teaching about resilience and wellbeing, I feel liberated to talk about lived experience and how I embed my toolkit for resilience in my daily life.

I have chosen to upskill and invest in understanding how the adolescent brain develops, concepts of neuroplasticity and the fundamentals of mental health first aid. But for some this topic will prove daunting and they will lack the necessary knowledge to teach this area effectively.

Few teachers enter the profession with substantial background training in child or adolescent development, or how best to support children’s health and wellbeing. Only a minority of staff in schools think that the training or guidance they have received has helped them to support pupils with their wellbeing and mental health (National Assembly for Wales, CYPE Committee, 2017a).

Yet from September 2020 all children in England will be taught how to look after their mental wellbeing and recognise when classmates may be struggling, as the Government unveils new guidance for the introduction of compulsory health education.

Pupils of all ages will be taught the new subject – with a focus on promoting the positive link between physical and mental health.

Yet the guidance does not detail how to understand child brain development, emotional literacy or strategies for reducing stress with self-care.

Worryingly, research also shows that around half of teachers have struggled with their own mental health due to the pressures of work. Investing in training will not only benefit pupils but will help teachers look after their own emotional health.

Stress in adults can leak into young minds which is why we should also address teacher mental health using a whole school approach. Wellbeing provision in schools is inconsistent and varies greatly across the country. This has created a postcode lottery, where some schools effectively support children to build resilience and develop their social and emotional knowledge and skills, while other schools do not.

Teachers and school staff must be well-equipped to provide the right environment for learning and wellbeing. Teachers have reported that they are acting outside of their competence and capacity in relation to children’s mental health. Teachers are often not sufficiently trained to identify signs of mental health issues or to approach these issues confidently. Despite being well intentioned they are often unable to signpost their students to get help.

Therefore, it is essential that an understanding of children’s psychological development, wellbeing, resilience and mental health is embedded into Initial Teacher Training and Continued Professional Development. This is necessary to ensure that all teachers have the basic knowledge and skills to be able to promote the wellbeing of students and to respond effectively to mental health concerns.

They must also receive appropriate support to deliver a whole-school approach to wellbeing and resilience through the curriculum, school culture and beyond.

Victoria English is an award-winning speaker, lecturer and mental health consultant specialising in mental and emotional health, special educational needs and corporate wellbeing. 

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