1 / 29

Providing Social Emotional, Mental Health and Wellbeing Support to Students and School Community

School Counsellor Service. Providing Social Emotional, Mental Health and Wellbeing Support to Students and School Community. Promoting inclusion a sense of belonging and a sense of achievement.

britain
Download Presentation

Providing Social Emotional, Mental Health and Wellbeing Support to Students and School Community

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. School Counsellor Service Providing Social Emotional, Mental Health and Wellbeing Support to Students and School Community

  2. Promoting inclusion a sense of belonging and a sense of achievement

  3. Among young Australians aged 12-25 years, depression is the most common mental health problem. Around one in ten young Australians will experience an anxiety disorder in any given 12 month period. At least one third of young people have had an episode of mental illness by the age of 25 years. Orygen Youth Health. oyh.org.au Making Sense of Orygen Youth Health www.orygen.org.au/docs/INFO/MS%200YH2(1)

  4. World Health Organisation model for school mental health promotion Who is involvedLevel of intervention Adapted from the WHO 1994 Mind Matters

  5. FOCUS AREAS Therapeutic Intervention – Individual Counselling - Small Group Work Whole School Approach (Mind Matters, U Can Do It, PSWB) Value adding to Curriculum – Targeted topics – mental health, healthy relationships, bullying, protective behaviours Social and Emotional Programs (Heart masters, Peer Skills, Rock & Water) Staff – strategies, wellbeing response plan, resources, vent Mandatory Reporting, Child Protection, Keeping Safe Protective Behaviours, sexual health Critical Incident Support

  6. Working with teachersand support staff • Although students comprise the bulk of counsellor clientele, limited brief intervention & support is available to staff. • Ongoing support can be accessed through EAP providers (EASA, DCP). • Today though we’d like to focus on ‘self-care’ for school staff working in Special Education.

  7. Why Mental Health? Everyone has mental health! What are mental health problems? A mental health problem causes major changes in a person’s thinking, emotional state and behaviour and disrupts the person’s ability to work and carry on their usual personal relationships.

  8. MENTAL ILLNESS IS DISABLING The burden of mental illness is often underestimated. Mental illness can be more disabling for the sufferer than many chronic physical illnesses. Research by WHO compared the amount of disability caused by a mental health problem to the amount of disability caused by a physical health problem. The results are outstanding: The disability rendered bymoderate depressionis similar to the disability from relapsing MS, severe asthma, chronic Hepatitis B or deafness; Severe post traumatic stress disorderdisability is comparable to disability from paraplegia; Severe schizophreniais comparable to quadriplegia. 10

  9. One in five Australian adults, in any one year, will have a mental health problemNational Mental Health & Wellbeing Survey 1997 Three most common mental illness: • Anxiety Disorder • Depressive Disorder • Substance Misuse Disorder

  10. Teaching is demanding • Teaching ranks in the top quartile on complexity for all occupations and this inherent complexity makes it a demanding profession to master. Snowman & Biehler (2000)

  11. Teaching is stressful • Research has indicated that teaching has become one of the most stressful professions in recent years. Billingsley (2004)

  12. Special Educationis particularly demanding • The additional demand corresponds to a greater degree of stress. • This has a significant impact on teacher attrition. Gersten, Keating, Yovanoff & Harniss (2001)

  13. Its not just teachers! • Demands associated with special needs children have impacts, including stress, across school community. Ray (2002) • Support staff – special ed support officers (ISAs), teachers’ aides, behaviour advisors, school-based constables, counsellors etc... • And of course – parents!

  14. Parental stress • Caring for a child with a chronic disability or illness poses significant challenges in addition to those inherent in raising a healthy child. Ray (2002) • Parents of special needs students are of course invaluable partners in educational outcomes – but are often managing considerable stress of their own.

  15. Mindfulness-BasedStress Reduction • MBSR is effective for moderating stress for parents of special needs students. • reduction in stress symptoms of 32% and in total mood disturbance of 56%. Minor, Carlson, Mackenzie, Zernicke & Jones (2006)

  16. MBSR - moderating stressin teachers • The results showed improvement for most participants for anxiety, depression, and stress. • MBSR could be a potentially cost-effective method to combat teacher stress and burnout Gold, Smith, Hopper, Herne, Tansey & Hulland, (April 2010)

  17. Mindfulness • "a kind of nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is“ Bishop et al. (2004) • For more info see: www.mindfulness.net.au or www.mindfulness.org.au

  18. What’s specialabout Special Educators? • Special needs educators reported having an average level of coping resources at their disposal. • Special needs educators reported having a high level of ‘Sense of Coherence’. • Positive psychology & strengths focus Brown, Howcroft, & Jacobs (2009)

  19. The salutogenic paradigm • focuses on health as opposed to illness • rejects the traditional medical-model dichotomy separating health and illness • continuous variable - what he called the ‘health-ease’ versus dis-ease continuum • fundamental conceptual shift  DSM-V Antonovsky (1979)

  20. Why invest time? • Depression accounts for six million full workdays lost each year Mental Health Council of Australia • Untreated mental disorders rob our young people of their capacity to complete education, start work and form families. In 15 – 34 yr olds, 60% of disability costs are due to mental health problems. Three quarters of mental illnesses begin between the ages of 15 & 25 yrs. Mental Health Council of Australia

  21. …the more people in a community, such as a school, who are emotionally and socially competent, the easier it will be to help those with acute problems. Wearne, (2006) Developing the Emotionally Literate School

  22. Exercise: What can you do? • Assess the degree of stress in your work unit. • What do you currently do to address it? • What could you perhaps do better? • OPERATIONALISE IT: set a time to devise an action plan. Be SMART.

  23. Resources Toy Box

  24. The Staff Matters Model

  25. What can you do for yourself? • Don’t be too hard on yourself • Identify that you are stressed • Utilise the available resources • Work colleagues • Employee Assistance Programme: - EASA 1800 193 123 - DCP 1800 289129 • Personal resources

More Related