Transcript Mental Health and Wellbeing - Department Of Education NT

Providing Social Emotional, Mental Health
and Wellbeing Support
to Students and School Community
Promoting inclusion
a sense of belonging
and a sense of achievement
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)
World Health Organisation model for school mental
health promotion
Who is involved
3 – 12 % students
Level of intervention
Professional
treatment
20 – 30% Students
Psycho social
interventions and
problems
All teachers and students
Entire School Community
students needing additional
mental health treatment
Students needing additional
help in school
Mental health education
-knowledge attitudes
-And behaviour
Create environment
conductive to promoting psycho
social competence and Wellbeing
Adapted from the WHO 1994
Mind Matters
Part of general curriculum
Whole School Environment
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
Whole of Programme Issues 2009
Top Six
500
mixed
450
male
400
female
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Whole of Programme Interventions 2009
Top Six
1200
1000
mixed
male
800
600
400
200
0
female
Working with teachers
and support staff
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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.
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.
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 by moderate depression is similar
to the disability from relapsing MS, severe asthma, chronic
Hepatitis B or deafness;
 Severe post traumatic stress disorder disability is
comparable to disability from paraplegia;
 Severe schizophrenia is comparable to quadriplegia.
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One in five Australian adults, in any one
year, will have a mental health problem
National Mental Health & Wellbeing Survey 1997
Three most common mental illness:
Anxiety Disorder
 Depressive Disorder
Substance Misuse Disorder
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Teaching is demanding
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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)
Teaching is stressful
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Research has indicated that teaching has
become one of the most stressful
professions in recent years.
Billingsley (2004)
Special Education
is particularly demanding
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The additional demand corresponds to a
greater degree of stress.
This has a significant impact on teacher
attrition.
Gersten, Keating,
Yovanoff & Harniss (2001)
Its not just teachers!
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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!
Parental stress
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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.
Mindfulness-Based
Stress Reduction
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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)
MBSR - moderating stress
in teachers
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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)
Mindfulness
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"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
What’s special
about Special Educators?
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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)
The salutogenic paradigm
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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)
Why invest time?
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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
…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
Exercise: What can you do?
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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.
Toy Box
Resources
Resource
networks
You
Resource
networks
Resource
networks
www.curriculum.edu.au/mindmatters
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
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