Classroom commentary

Schools everywhere are struggling to cope with student mental heath issues. King James’s School is no exception, reports Assistant Principal Abbi Terry.

Ihave recently qualified as the Senior Mental Health lead for King James’s School which was a course that has been funded by the Department for Education. They recognised that mental health is at crisis point particularly after the pandemic and wanted to enable school staff to be able to support the school community.

At first, I saw this as an amazing opportunity and was glad that for once, it seemed that our government were taking this seriously. I also had personal reasons for wanting to take part in that I also struggle with my mental health (something I am very open about) and I have had to learn that it is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life. I see it as a strength and my perspective has changed because of it. I would say that I am a more compassionate person with empathy, because of my experiences and as hard as it was to deal with, I would never change it.

Why now? What is going on? I am sometimes asked why there seems to be such a big issue with mental health now compared to the past. Admittedly when I was at school back in the 1980s–1990s, there was rarely talk of mental health. If it was ever mentioned it was because someone was a ‘nutter’, a ‘psycho’ or ‘mad’. Looking back at my life as a teenager I do now recognise that I did have signs of poor mental health then and should have been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Maybe if that had happened, and I had had treatment at the time, I wouldn’t have become one of the 25% of adults in the UK with a diagnosable mental health condition.

Mental health: a big issue for young people

1 in 6 children aged 5-16 were identified as having a mental health problem in 2021, a huge increase from 1 in 9 in 2017. That’s five children in every classroom.

83% of young people with mental health needs agreed that the pandemic had made their mental health worse.

Suicide was the leading cause of death for males and females aged between 5 and 34 in 2019.

The number of A & E attendances for under 18s with a psychiatric condition has more than tripled between 2010 and 2019.

Source: NHS Digital/Young Minds

I would argue that it is a mistake to argue that mental health issues simply didn’t exist in the past. They did but they just weren’t discussed because it was such a big stigma to do so. Yes, we are currently in a mental health crisis but the positive of it is that the shame of it is being challenged. People can and do talk about how they feel now with honesty and candour. The missive ‘it’s OK, not to be OK’ is incredibly powerful and it is vital that this continues to be adopted.

Damaging

messages such as ‘boys don’t cry’ and about keeping a ‘stiff upper lip’ do not apply as much now and that can only be a good thing as we look forward to the future while looking after the young people in our care.

Facts about mental health in the UK and at KJS l Anxiety and depression are the most common mental health issues in the UK l Younger people are more likely to suffer from anxiety l Women report higher anxiety levels than men l At KJS, the top three issues that pupils are referred for support are anxiety, anger and self-harm.

The onus is increasingly on schools

The Department for Education approved course taught me to audit provision in school, how to look for support elsewhere and how to make the most of services that we can access.While this was useful to me, it also made me worry that the onus is now on schools to provide mental health support and care to our young people. This is a huge concern as staff are not trained mental health specialists.We are very lucky as a school that our Principal Ian Rimmer recognised the importance of employing a school counsellor and so we have one member of staff with the proper qualifications. The rest of us though, do not have this, and I am beginning to suspect that schools are being expected to plug the gap.

Camhs

The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) is a nationwide NHS-run service with a number of staff including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, psychological therapists and mental health link workers. Unfortunately, the waiting list for young people to be seen is around 21 weeks and schools are expected to try and support them while they have a mental health crisis. There are also additional concerns that CAMHS have been forced to raise the threshold of how ill the young person is before they can be added to waiting lists. This means that King James’s School staff (as well as school staff all around the country) are having to deal with more serious issues such as self-harm, depression and suicidal thoughts. I am not laying blame on organisations like CAMHS – they are also on their knees, and I know that Thriving Kirklees (The Kirklees arm of CAMHS) (see panel) are desperately trying to do their best.

In the 20+ years that I have been teaching, I have never known anything like it. When I first started teaching the focus was only on students that were taught, planning and delivering lessons and getting decent results. Now, school staff are not just

What we are trying to do about it

We have started working closely with the Kirklees Mental Health Support Team (MHST) as a MHST School. This began in March 2022.

The MHST is a partnership between Kirklees Council, Northorpe Hall and the NHS who provide a team of educational psychologists, parent and community workers and clinical staff who work with students in crisis on a one to one basis.

So far, we have been supported with: l Counselling services for young people l Staff training including Mental Health First Aider training for 6 members of staff and ELSA training. ELSAs are Emotional Literacy Support Assistants who have received training from Educational Psychologists to support the emotional development of children and young people in schools. l Upcoming training includes selfharm training and ACEs and Resilience training (looking at Adverse Childhood Experiences and what we can do to help young people be more resilient). teachers, pastoral leaders or associate staff anymore. We are now social workers, counsellors, therapists and parents to many of our young people. It is an impossible situation, and I don’t have an answer to it.

Thriving Kirklees is the local arm of the NHS-run Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). It’s a partnership of local health and wellbeing providers, working together to support children, young people and their families to thrive and be healthy.

CAMHS offers assessment and interventions for children and young people (including those with learning disabilities) who have persistent and significant difficulties with mental health issues.

The only thing that we can do is keep doing what we are doing and hope for the best.