Teachers and school staff across Northern Ireland are to be offered a crash course in mental health to help them support pupils in the classroom.
The news came on World Mental Health Day 2019 (October 10).
Following a successful pilot of 19 schools, run by the Royal College of Psychiatrists Northern Ireland and the Northern Trust, the programme will be rolled out to interested primary and secondary schools across the country.
A consultant psychiatrist in child and adolescent mental health; trainee psychiatrist and other professionals from Children’s Early Intervention Service; will be on hand to talk about mental health, how Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (camhs) teams are structured and how referrals to these services work.
Currently around 20 per cent of teenagers may experience mental health problems in any one year with 50 per cent of conditions being established by age 14.
Now school staff will be educated on conditions such as OCR autism, eating disorders, depression and self-harm and how to spot early warning signs in the classroom.
There will also be discussions on hot topics, such as the rise of social media and its effects on young person’s mental health.
Teachers will also benefit from information on how to handle their own stresses thanks to an additional Mood Matters programme run in conjunction with Aware NI – the national depression charity for Northern Ireland.
Entitled, the Crash Course in Mental Health for Schools – What Teachers and Staff Need to Know, the scheme was the brainchild of Dr Maggie McGurgan, as part of her role as chair of the public engagement committee at RCPsych NI and supported by her employer, Northern Health and Social Care Trust.
Commenting on the initiative Dr McGurgan, who is also leading the scheme, said: “We know from our pilot that teachers found the course boosted their confidence when dealing with mental health issues in the classroom.
“The course is also important as it gives teachers the tools to build personal resilience and manage their own stress.
“The crash course is vital training for teachers at a time when children and young people’s mental health services are over-stretched.”