Mentors, nurture rooms and mindfulness: what schools can do to enhance pupils’ mental health

Recent data shows that around 20% of youngsters and young people aged from eight to 25 years have a probable mental disorder.

This is a rise from the ten% recorded in 2017, when the UK government declared the prevalence of mental in poor health health in children and young people to be “one in all the burning injustices of our time”.

Lack of investment in mental health services, coupled with growing demand, has left many children and young individuals with limited or no support.

The effects are being felt in schools. Ofsted’s 2023 annual report includes concern concerning the rising use of part-time timetables in schools – which will be for youngsters scuffling with their mental health. Part-time attendance may involve only attending school on specified days or every day attendance but with a discount within the variety of hours pupils spend in class.

Schools are operating with already stretched resources. But they’re an obvious path to supporting children’s mental health. Children and young people spend a big proportion of their time in schools.

With the correct resources to assist, schools could offer swift support – especially when many children and young people experience delays in accessing external support, particularly from child and adolescent mental health services.

A key way that schools could support children’s mental health is the introduction of a mental health curriculum. This would aim to develop pupils’ mental health literacy by developing their knowledge of mental health issues and introducing them to strategies to administer their very own mental health.

Dedication to mental health

My own research with colleagues explored the impact of a mental health curriculum delivered by a sports community trust and faculty partnership, with 570 young people in schools across Cambridge.

The curriculum included sessions on stress, resilience, social media use and self-management strategies. A mental health curriculum was designed and delivered by sports coaches who were employed by the community trust and trained in mental health to students in secondary schools. Footballers from the local football club contributed by sharing their very own lived experiences of mental ill-health.

Not only did students’ knowledge of mental health improve, but in addition they gained knowledge of strategies to assist themselves address adversity and easy methods to help others with mental in poor health health.

Another strand of the entire school approach pertains to working in partnership with children and young people to enhance mental health. We conducted one other study through which older students acted as mentors in secondary schools. They designed and delivered weekly physical activity sessions to younger students with social, emotional and mental health needs.

We found that this improved levels of physical activity, which supported children’s mental health. The younger students gained coping skills and the programme also helped with their social skills, by resulting in the event of supportive and trusting relationships between mentors and the scholars they were supporting.

Both studies illustrate that schools can play a task in supporting children and young people’s mental health – but that they require help and funding to accomplish that.

Space and time

Nurture groups are utilized in some schools to support children with social, emotional and mental health needs. They can happen in nurture rooms, which are likely to be more informal spaces than standard classrooms and supply positive environments for youngsters to develop social and emotional literacy and regulation skills.

Nurture groups deal with helping children with their confidence, self-esteem and communication and with establishing positive relationships with others. These skills are explicitly taught and youngsters have opportunities to practise the abilities they learn.

A research study involving 384 children aged five and 6 demonstrated improvements in social, emotional and behavioural outcomes, although there was no evidence that nurture groups led to improvements in academic outcomes.

Mindfulness is one other practice that may happen in schools. The aim of mindfulness, as a practice, is to focus attention on the current reasonably than the past or the longer term, through guided participation. This could include specializing in respiration or a particular a part of the body.

People can then use mindfulness by themselves to support their very own mental health. Research with 216 secondary school students has demonstrated positive effectsincluding improvements in emotional regulation and emotional clarity in addition to a discount in perceived stress.

However, it will be significant to do not forget that teachers usually are not mental health therapists. There are skilled boundaries that apply to what they will and can’t do. In a 2023 documentary on young people and mental health, presenter Roman Kemp called for the federal government to commit funding so that each one schools can profit from the expertise of an education mental health practitioner.

These practitioners are employed by the NHS. They are deployed into schools to offer help for youngsters and young individuals with mental health needs. Increasing investment on this service would be certain that schools are higher resourced and capable of address mental health needs.

In addition, increased government funding would also enable all schools to appoint a suitably qualified designated member of staff to steer and manage the mental health provision across the college. This must be a protected role, free from other responsibilities.

Proper investment in mental health services is urgently required in order that young people can get the support that they need in a timely manner.