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Getting it Right at St. Joseph’s Academy: Personal Support
SUPPORTING MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH & WELLBEING
You can view this document online at:
An information leaflet for parents and carers
http://issuu.com/sja2013/docs/supporting_mental_and_emotional_hea or Supporting Mental & Emotional Health and Wellbeing http://www.saintjosephsacademy.co.uk/blog/?p=126
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SUPPORTING MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH & WELLBEING There is nothing more important than this
talked about openly and pupils can be helped to deal effectively with them.
Our priority is young people’s health and wellbeing, including their mental and emotional health. This priority is central to our Catholic faith. It is because we are a Catholic school that we strive to create a nurturing ethos of love and support through which we can challenge, develop and grow the abilities of young people and celebrate their uniqueness.
We also know that we will not always get everything right all the time, but at St. Joseph’s we have worked very hard with all staff to make it a priority to address these challenges over the past year. We have put in place the following strategies and other supports.
Everything else we do is based on this aim. Success in learning, in exams, in extra-curricular activities all depend on young people knowing themselves, being comfortable with who they are and being confident and resilient. That is why our school values are not just nice phrases on walls or on posters; they are the ideas around which we organise our curriculum, teach our classes and recognise achievement.
The Challenge However, this is not always easy. All secondary schools have found in recent times that there has been an increase in the number of young people who are struggling with mental health issues including depression, eating disorders, selfharm, thoughts of suicide and anxiety. It can be very difficult to talk about this and, particularly for parents and carers, confronting these issues at home or, for teachers, at school, can be disturbing. The statistics are clear: 1 in 8 Scottish youngsters has self-harmed and more young people take their own lives than die in road accidents each year.
What Have We Done So Far? As a school we aim to be positive, proactive and courageous in addressing these issues. We want our young people and their families to feel that even very difficult feelings and emotions can be
• Specific support for individual young people who are in difficulty or crisis • Challenging the stigma of mental illness by encouraging staff and pupils to talk about it • Training a number of staff in various methods of supporting young people • Creating a Safe Plan for any young person who is going through difficulties • Sharing information with staff to ensure that learning and classroom relationships are properly supported • Focussing on mental health awareness raising in Home Room and at other times • Working with Educational Psychologists, the Samaritans, See Me, Young Minds and others to address issues of mental health • Holding parent workshops • Publishing articles in our school magazine and newsletter about mental health • Creating a set of procedures for supporting young people • Providing staff with advice on supporting young people who are self-harming or having thoughts of suicide
We Do We Plan to Do Next? We have also developed a detailed plan for how we intend to continue to improve our approach to mental health and wellbeing. This includes taking the ‘See Me...’ pledge, developing better pupil-to-pupil support and setting up an advisory group to steer our work in this area.
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SUPPORTING MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH & WELLBEING In the last year pupils have raised a considerable amount for mental health charities such as Young Minds and the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH). We are establishing a scheme in school whereby pupils can become Young Ambassadors for positive mental health and take on responsibility for leading initiatives and working with younger pupils. We will complement these initiatives with more work in Home Room and by providing opportunities for pupils to explore their feelings through approaches such as mindfulness, prayer and retreats. Starting next Tuesday we will have a weekly drop-in service in Pupil Support run by Natalie Sinclair, our School Nurse, and we have installed a carousel in the foyer containing leaflets providing information about mental health.
This week: Hopes for the Future This week in Home Room pupils have undertaken another week of activities linked to positive health and wellbeing. Our focus has been ‘Hope’ and each Home Room produced green ribbons on which pupils have written their hopes for the future. On Wednesday we attached these to trees on the campus. On Friday we are planting a Tree for Hope in the school grounds to symbolise our commitment to improving mental health for all.
Empowering Our Young People We are keen to encourage young people to take responsibility for developing confidence, resilience and ways of managing their mental health. That is why we will continue to place strong, nurturing relationships at the heart of our work. The feedback from pupils, staff and parents and carers shows that people view the strong relationships between all members of the community of St. Joseph’s Academy as being our
greatest asset and we want to build on this. Home Room is very important to this; it is designed to be a family unit for pupils that will see them through their time at school. It is also important that pupils have regular opportunities to talk about their achievements, learning, challenges and feelings. This happens both in Home Room and in classes and we intend to develop our approach even further next session.
What Parents and Carers Can Do If you are worried about the mental health and wellbeing of your child please contact their Pupil Support Teacher. As soon as you do we can begin to provide support. At home you can help your child by talking about mental health and by encouraging your child to express their feelings, especially when they are confused, under pressure or upset. Do not be afraid to use phrases such as ‘self-harm’ or ‘suicide’ in these conversations if you feel they need to be discussed. You can access more advice by making contact with us at St. Joseph’s or by contacting the following organisations: Samaritans 45 Titchfield St, Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire KA1 1QS, 01563 531313 Young Minds www.youngminds.org.uk and www.youngminds.org.uk/for_parents Parent Helpline: 0800 802 5544 SAMH www.samh.org.uk Breathing Space www.breathingspacescotland.co.uk 0800 83 85 87 St. Joseph’s Academy: 01563 526144. When you call it is usually best to ask to speak to your child’s Pupil Support Teacher. You can also speak with one of the Senior Management Team who will always do their best to be available to
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GETTING IT RIGHT FOR EVERY CHILD Getting it Right for Every Child (also known as “Getting it right” or GIRFEC) is the national approach to supporting and working with all children and young people in Scotland. Getting it Right places children’s and young people’s needs first, ensures that they are listened to and understand decisions which affect them and that they get more co-ordinated help where this is required for their well-being, health and development. It requires that all services for children and young people improve how they work together to support children and young people.
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This vision for children and young people in Scotland is shown in the image below. There are eight aims for all that are linked to the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence and to our school values.
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A t M S t. ak J os Th e A e i D p n h’ k i ff s: of er e O nc th e er s