The Mental Health Crisis in Schools Is Going To Explode: Can Positive Education Prevent A Meltdown?

Mental Health services for children pre-Covid-10 were already overwhelmed. We now need something more than reactive, over-stretched services and inadequate services. The preventative strategy that Positive Education seems to offer could be the way forward, explain Andy Mellor and Jim Nicholson.

The accountability machine sucks the life from schools and pupils and makes Year 6 a bizarre and unbalanced final year in primary for millions of children. When accountability measures are the main measures of success, schools and staff work increasingly long hours to meet those targets. The current system of accountability is unfair on all schools but it is especially unfair on schools serving disadvantaged communities.

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      string(5687) "Back in the day when I worked as a School Improvement Advisor, I could offer Heads and senior leaders an independent critical friendship and coaching service which gave them an opportunity to voice concerns and challenges without feeling judged.In this role, I worked with a Headteacher who was garrulous, well-loved, and who led a thriving school, popular with parents and staff. One day we went on a long car journey to attend some training and he revealed his sleepless nights of worry about the job and doubt about an upcoming Ofsted inspection. I sympathised and shared with him my own experience as a Head of anxiety and impending doom on many days when I drove to school during an unexpected crisis.We talked about how difficult it is during challenging times to lead a school – to be the person who must act as if in full control. To be the well-rehearsed confident, decisive voice of authority, reassuring everyone that everything is all going to turn out okay. And doing all this whilst inside our head is a quaking, vulnerable soul, searching for the solution to save the day.This incongruence can take its toll on our wellbeing. You can’t let your persona falter or let your guard down, so your temper becomes shorter at home and you lie awake at 3am with the tyrant in your head telling you what you already know – you just can’t do it any more… But you wake up and you go in again, heart pounding. You used to love your job – what happened?In my follow up meetings with this particular Head I asked him how he was, but his ‘brave’ front was up and all he said was “Absolutely fine”. But it wasn’t. The tragic end to this story is that some weeks later, my colleague was found dead in his office. He had committed suicide.Nobody could understand why this highly successful, popular family man would do such a thing. His school was ‘outstanding’ – a judgment confirmed by Ofsted some months later. His suffering must have been unbearable and, as far as I know unspoken, apart from on that car journey.There is nothing more dangerous, I concluded, than a leader hiding his or her doubts and failures and allowing those thoughts to erode their resilience until they believe the world would be better off without them.This was when I decided to become a coach.There are many school leaders who are suffering from the huge pressures Covid has relentlessly put upon them and their schools. But they still must make life-changing decisions for their children and their staff every day. School leaders have been immensely flexible and resilient throughout this crisis, putting the safety and education of their students at the forefront of their thinking whilst also balancing the health and wellbeing of their staff.How can we ensure that our leaders have the support for their own wellbeing that they need through these times? No-one could doubt that a personal physical fitness trainer to motivate us to get physically fit and stronger would be a help for any leader. Even more important – especially today – would be a mental fitness trainer to help us understand how to manage our minds, to intercept negative thinking and grow our own mental muscles of empathy, resilience and self-regulation.A good coach is a mental fitness trainer. He or she will listen, challenge your inner critic and show you how to create and maintain helpful habits of thinking. A coach will show that you are far more likely to react to negative experiences, that this is part of your instinctive flight- fight instincts and that there are good reasons our brain works this way.Humanity has survived because we are acutely sensitive to threats to our survival. This is why one small safeguarding error, one critical parent or impending grievance procedure can outweigh all the positive things that happen on a daily basis. So much of our state of mind is dictated by our unconscious bias that attempting to apply pure willpower to solve the everyday challenges of school leadership will not be enough.A coach will also help you challenge the imposter syndrome that haunts so many of us and makes it so hard to enjoy the success we have longed for, despite all the evidence that we are doing a great job.This is a good reason to deliberately focus on the good things you have done today by keeping a gratitude journal. The inner commentary we have that dwells on the negative is powerful and personal. Understanding why that happens and how to get a peaceful, clear mind despite the turmoil surrounding you is the gift that a coach can give you.A coach holds up a mirror to your thinking and helps you reflect on your limiting beliefs to uncover the lies your brain sometimes tells you. A coach absolutely knows that you have all the innate capacity to deal with everything this tough job throws at you – but not while you are getting in your own way with insecure thinking.Becoming conscious of our thinking helps us be calm and less reactive to our own and others mistakes and so gives us more space in our head to become the outstanding leader we can be. Every school leader needs a coach. For me it was transformational.The extra bonus of being coached is that we can then see the potential benefit and power of using peer coaching as a staff development tool and then, over time, as a student development tool. Self and peer coaching are levers which can help propel us out of present difficulties into a better future. Coaching helps us be the very best we can be because ithelps us leave behind the often-negative thinking in our heads and move into the reality"
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Blogs

A Headteacher’s Suicide That Should Never Have Happened

15 Jan 2021

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      string(5705) "feedback to TA colleagues June 2016Allocation of group members to four peer supervision groups (24 PSG members – six per group + two facilitators)Commencement of four PSGs September 2016On-going facilitator action learning groupTA CPD session on critical reflection on TA practice + further recruitment to groups June 2017Phase 3 September 2017-July 2018Reconfiguration of  PSGs and development of additional facilitators October 2017Report to school governorsOn-going support of facilitatorsCommencement of new PSGs October 2017Key process activitiesThe facilitators’ action learning group was essentially a template for peer group supervision, so providing a ‘model’ experience using experiential techniques (Johnson and Johnson, 2013). The facilitators’ group had access to a bespoke learning resource and the independent trainer acted as group facilitator in the early stages, gradually enabling group members to take turns in the facilitator role over the series of sessions.The initial session was devoted entirely to developing a contract for the group. This session was powerful and created the initial platform for group members to explore confidentiality and begin to build the necessary trust to make the group a safe space. The experience with the TA peer facilitators’ group mirrored that of an inter-professional peer group developed during an action research project in healthcare (Johnson, 2016) highlighting the crucial aspects in peer group supervision of structure and understanding of what confidentiality means. Of particular importance is the discussion around when confidential information may need to be shared outside the group and when individual group members will need to be supported to take action. This process is set out in the contract (see appendix).A process model was employed to structure and manage group processes. The model deployed is commonly used in health and social care settings (Page and Woskett, 2015) and adapted for use for the project. This model has five stages: Contract – Focus – Space – Bridge – Review. As with the health practitioners in an inter-professional group (Johnson, 2016), the TAs found this initially rather mechanical and clumsy, but soon appreciated how it enabled them to allocate time fairly, move issues along, manage the discussion and prevent the session descending into a general chat or moaning session.The groups have no pre-determined agenda, apart from reference to the agreed purpose, with the process in each session commencing with the facilitator asking group members if they have any issues they wish to share. Time is then allocated according to how many group members wish to raise an issue. Each person then has time to detail the issue (Focus). Discussion is then opened to the whole group (Space) with the facilitator managing the process, for example, preventing people talking over each other. In peer supervision, all group members are co-supervisors – it is not the facilitators who provide analysis and feedback.The TA presenting the issue is then helped to identify what they have learned from the discussion and what and how any action will be taken (Bridge). The Review is a crucial component at the end of every session as it requires group members to reflect on the experience and discuss the process of supervision, including feedback to the facilitators and how the session felt for each individual. Facilitating a PSG is a complex process and the TA facilitators are essentially novices in this area, so allocating two facilitators to each group and continuing the facilitators’ action learning group alongside is a means of providing support and development for those individuals.ContentFollowing completion of Phase 2, the experience was evaluated and the main themes emerging from the sessions summarised. Of interest to participants and senior leaders was the focus of session content (see Table 2).Table 2: TA peer supervision group session content Key TA practice issues addressed within peer group supervision Behaviour management of students – both broad approaches and individual student’s behaviour – examples of positive and negative experiences, e.g. deployment of successful Team Teach de-escalation, support and training requirements Exploring understanding re student mental health issues, including training needsDetails of working with specific student groups in school to develop positive learning experiences – examples of specific learning strategies sharedThoughts and opinions on how different colleagues/teams workDealing with stressful situations/ things that didn’t go as well as expected – personal emotional debriefCoping with change – school environment/site, roles and responsibilities, staffing, team structures and relationships, changing student population profileSupport for new staff – ideas and strategies such as mentoring and inductionFrom the trainer/facilitator’s perspective, it was interesting to see the common themes emerging with research undertaken with an inter-professional peer supervision group in healthcare (Johnson, 2016). The need to vent emotion, often related to coping with change, was a strong theme in the action research study in healthcare (Johnson, 2016) and was paralleled in the TA facilitators’ group. Problem-solving, and as TAs became more confident, challenging each other’s perspectives was another common theme between the two settings. Issues about team work and team dynamics and dealing with stressful situations also occurred as content in both groups. The"
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Leadership

A New Way To Develop Teaching Assistants

16 Apr 2018

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      string(5923) "particular tree. Warming up is vitally important to “build group cohesion and spontaneity” (Blatner, A. (1973). Acting-In, Practical Applications of Psychodramatic Methods, p.11 .Springer). Each part of the Tree is worked through weekly and also can be gone back to the following week. Some young people feel the urge to do everything at once, while others take their time either, because they find it hard to start or that ideas take time to develop.Example Two.In a session with teenage young people who were all newly arrived to the United Kingdom, we discovered in the roots the importance of cultural identity through shared languages, music, and foods. One of the young women talked about her home in South America and how she missed the food, music, and bright colours in the streets. During our time together as a group, we played music via phones from different parts of the world. The young women spoke about how she never really got an opportunity to speak about her culture and how important it was in respect of identity.The Tree of Life also allows for stories to develop, both on an individual basis, but also as a collective and during the many sessions I have run over the past few years this has been the case. As the facilitator, it is important to be flexible within the framework and that doing something creative may mean that you go in a slightly different direction than you had originally planned. It is important to allow this to happen and encourage as a shared story may develop which may lead to group discussion/reflection.Example Three.One young person in a group stuck glass stones in the Tree canopy which he said were special stones with magical powers. It developed into a discussion with the group about what magical powers would they want to change things and how would they use the powers. Again, stories developed and a shared story was created about things wished for and how they might be able to get them. Often not easily and usually through some adventure and obstacle to overcome.                                                                 It has been well-received in all the schools across Liverpool which asked for the programme to be run and initial feedback is very positive from the young people and the school staff who have co-facilitated the sessions.Over the time I have been using this method, it has been scored via questionnaire as 63% as excellent and 37% as very good with no negative feedback noted, although some schools wanted the sessions to go on longer, as did some of the young people.At the end of the sessions, we often do a combined tree together to represent the group and gain feedback in a less formal way and each child is given a certificate of attendance for completing the sessions. In some of the schools we have also provided each child with a small plant to grow and nurture, such as rosemary, which is able to survive tough conditions and grow in most yards, in a pot, or a garden. It is important to mark and celebrate the work acknowledging what the children and young people have done.Final CommentsThe Tree of Life as a programme is easily implementable and requires a small amount of resources. It meets the needs of helping children and young people talk about themselves, their lives and culture, and is something that enhances emotional health and wellbeing in a normal way.It has potential to help schools and staff to support the emotional health and well-being of the children, offers space for children to be creative and expressive, and can aid assessment in terms of development.FeedbackTeachers:It was great. The children were allowed to explore their thoughts and thinking process in their own time.It encouraged them to consider wider issues.Child Led.It gave the students time to share where they come from in a positive and creative way.Children and Young people:It was relaxing. It made me feel calm.Some of the things we talked about were hard.I felt creative.I felt happy and relaxed.It was hard to talk about family.I liked role playing. Carl Dutton is a Senior Mental Health practitioner working for FRESH CAMHS at Alderhey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. ReferencesMental Health services provided in schools are some of the most accessible for CYP. This is because most CYP attend school, access to schools-based services does not require a clinical diagnosis, and schools are often the first point of contact for CYP and their families when they begin to experience mental health problems. A 2017 joint report by the Health and Education Select Committees emphasised the importance of a whole-school approach to mental health, mental health training for teachers, and co-ordinating schools and children and young people’s mental health services.A key part of schools’ mental health work across the entire education system is preventative; for example, building resilience, promoting well-being, and destigmatising mental health issues through Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE).( Postnote Number 563 October 2017 p.2).Graham Allen MP was asked by the then Prime Minister to review the use of early intervention programs for children and families and concluded that, “If we intervene early enough, we can give children a vital social and emotional foundation which will help to keep them happy, healthy and achieving throughout their lives.” (Graham Allen MP- Early Intervention: The Next Steps. 2011).Evidence shows that interventions taking a whole school approach to well-being have a positive impact in relation to both physical health"
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Inclusion

Intervening Early With The Tree of Life - A creative way to help school children talk about themselves

17 Apr 2018

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      string(5938) "stories and use their imagination as a warming up process to the drawing/painting of their own particular tree.Warming up is vitally important to “build group cohesion and spontaneity” (Blatner, A. 1973. Acting-In, Practical Applications of Psychodramatic Methods, p.11. Springer).Each part of the Tree is worked through weekly and also can be gone back to the following week. Some young people feel the urge to do everything at once, while others take their time either, because they find it hard to start or that ideas take time to develop.Example TwoIn a session with teenage young people who were all newly arrived to the United Kingdom, we discovered in the roots the importance of cultural identity through shared languages, music and foods. One of the young women talked about her home in South America and how she missed the food, music and bright colours in the streets. During our time together as a group, we played music from different parts of the world via phones. The young woman spoke about how she never really got an opportunity to speak about her culture and how important it was in respect of identity.The Tree of Life also allows for stories to develop, both on an individual basis, but also as a collective and, during the many sessions I have run over the past few years, this has been the case. As the facilitator, it is important to be flexible within the framework and that doing something creative may mean that you go in a slightly different direction than you had originally planned. It is important to allow this to happen and encourage, as a shared story may develop which may lead to group discussion/reflection.Example ThreeOne young person in a group stuck glass stones in the Tree canopy which he said were special stones with magical powers. It developed into a discussion with the group about what magical powers would they want to change things and how would they use the powers. Again, stories developed and a shared story was created about things wished for and how they might be able to get them. Often not easily and usually through some adventure and obstacle to overcome.  It has been well-received in all the schools across Liverpool which asked for the programme to be run and initial feedback is very positive from the young people and the school staff who have co-facilitated the sessions.Over the time I have been using this method, it has been scored via questionnaire as 63% as excellent and 37% as very good with no negative feedback noted, although some schools wanted the sessions to go on longer, as did some of the young people.At the end of the sessions, we often do a combined tree together to represent the group and gain feedback in a less formal way and each child is given a certificate of attendance for completing the sessions. In some of the schools, we have also provided each child with a small plant to grow and nurture, such as rosemary, which is able to survive tough conditions and grow in most yards, in a pot, or a garden. It is important to mark and celebrate the work acknowledging what the children and young people have done.Final CommentsThe Tree of Life as a programme is easily implementable and requires only a small number of resources. It meets the needs of helping children and young people talk about themselves, their lives and culture, and is something that enhances emotional health and wellbeing in a normal way.It has potential to help schools and staff to support the emotional health and well-being of the children, offers space for children to be creative and expressive, and can aid assessment in terms of development.FeedbackTeachersIt was great. The children were allowed to explore their thoughts and thinking process in their own time.It encouraged them to consider wider issuesChild-ledIt gave the students time to share where they come from in a positive and creative way.Children and Young people.It was relaxing. It made me feel calmSome of the things we talked about were hardI felt creative.I felt happy and relaxed.It was hard to talk about family.I liked role playing.Carl Dutton is a Senior Mental Health practitioner working for FRESH CAMHS at Alderhey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. He works in schools across Liverpool as part of the CAMHS Partnership, which is a unique jointly commissioned service involving statutory and third sector providers supporting the emotional health and wellbeing of children and young people.He can be contacted via email at carl.dutton@alderhey.nhs.ukReferences1.	Mental Health services provided in schools are some of the most accessible for CYP. This is because most CYP attend school, access to schools-based services does not require a clinical diagnosis, and schools are often the first point of contact for CYP and their families when they begin to experience mental health problems. A 2017 joint report by the Health and Education Select Committees emphasised the importance of a whole-school approach to mental health, mental health training for teachers, and co-ordinating schools and children and young people’s mental health services.2.	A key part of schools’ mental health work across the entire education system is preventative; for example, building resilience, promoting wellbeing, and destigmatising mental health issues through Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE). ( Postnote Number 563 October 2017 p.2).3.	Graham Allen MP was asked by the then Prime Minister to review the use of early intervention programmes for children and families and concluded that, “If we intervene early enough, we can"
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16 Apr 2018

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      string(5681) "personality that students can choose between freely. What’s Up? Students can type or speak, letting the Worrinot know whatever is on their mind. Make the Fear DisappearDepending on which Worrinot the child chose, their fear will be ripped, stomped, etc. and the child can watch it disappear on the screen. Worri-Tips The Worrinots encourage children to read the age-appropriate Worri-Tips & learn life-long coping mechanisms.Once the child has made the fear disappear, it is forwarded to the monitoring app, WatNot, which is a unique monitoring system designed specifically to help teachers and safeguarding officers identify and monitor fears that have been shared. If a response is required, the teacher or safeguarding officer can write a response that will appear in the child’s private account from the Worrinot character they originally shared their fear with.Worrinots provides a child-friendly way to help schools implement early intervention and have access to a tool that can provide discreet and effective monitoring of pupil’s worries and anxieties. It is also Ofsted compliant so schools can be sure they are using the correct procedures to address these sometimes complex and difficult issues. Mindshift CBT https://www.anxietycanada.com/MindShift-CBTMindshift CBT is an is an app designed to help teens and young adults cope with anxiety. It can help them change how they think about anxiety. Rather than trying to avoid anxiety, the app coaches them to face the issue and make an important shift.Mindshift CBT addresses important issues relating to mental health. It has tools to help with relaxation, developing more helpful ways of thinking and identifying active steps to help teens take charge of their anxiety. In addition to everyday anxiety, it addresses specific issues such as:  Making Sleep CountRiding Out Intense EmotionsTest AnxietyPerfectionismSocial AnxietyPerformance AnxietyWorryPanicConflictIn addition to delivering clear and relevant information that helps students learn about anxiety, assess their own situation and piece together a personalised plan to help manage the anxiety, the app has some great ‘chill out’ tools, such as relaxation exercises, visualisations and mindfulness strategies. Teens start by selecting a situation they are struggling with from the list of ‘My Situations’ and then they can get the facts related to anxiety and the situation their facing. Then they go through some ‘Check In’ exercises to see whether a particular situation is a problem. They can then develop their personalsed program, starting with finding more helpful thoughts with a set of ‘Thinking Right’ prompts, then dialing down the anxiety with the ‘Chill out Tools’ and then identifying next actions in the ‘Active Steps’ area. There is a place to jot down thoughts and feelings and inspirational quotes to keep momentum going. Although the app isn’t especially school-based, it has great content that can be introduced in a PSHE class and then the app can support teens independently as they try to work with the relevant tools and approaches.Mind Moose https://www.mindmoose.co.uk/Mind Moose offers schools a way to support and monitor the mental wellbeing and emotional health of primary-aged pupils through a fun, online programme. Pupils go on a journey of discovery with Mind Moose and his friends, watching short, fun animations before completing reflective activities based on the topics. They earn badges and certificates along the way and they are given ‘Moose Missions’ to undertake in school, or at home. The programme aims to develop children’s sense of self-worth, resilience and coping skills.Mind Moose is most suitable for pupils in Years 4–6, although it can be used with younger pupils and can be a very helpful during the transition to secondary school in Year 7.Within the programme, pupils learn to:recognise their good qualities, achievements and strengthsdevelop and maintain healthy self-worthunderstand how they can deal with life’s ups and downsmanage big emotions using evidence-based techniques such as mindfulnessuse tools such as kindness and gratitude to help them feel positive about lifeAll children can benefit from Mind Moose as they learn specific tools to develop good mental wellbeing, although the lessons are particularly powerful for vulnerable children and those who are anxious, have low self-esteem or low levels of confidence, have special educational needs (such as autism), are having difficulties at home, are experiencing bullying or other difficulties at school, or who are worried about moving to another year, school or from primary to secondary school. The company offers a school license that includes a teacher and parent guide, printable activity pack, assessment tools, stand-alone meditations to use with students, along with full digital access to the lessons and activities. Calm Harm https://calmharm.co.ukSelf harm is an increasingly common behaviour that affects around 10 per cent of young people, especially girls. It is often a way for young people to cope with or release overwhelming, difficult and distressing feelings. Often, the physical pain of self-harm might feel easier to deal with than the emotional pain that’s behind it. Sometimes it can also be a way for them to punish themselves for something they’ve done or have been accused of doing. It can make a young person feel they’re in control of at least one part of their lives, when other areas seem out of"
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Applications and Software

Nurturing Mental Health with Wellbeing Apps for Young People

8 Aug 2019

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