SEND

Social Emotional and Mental Health|Mental Health

Tools and tips

Understanding

Develop your understanding of some of the issue facing teenagers. Here is a useful video looking at teenage mental health from teachers tv. Another useful resource is the Young Minds Website. The If You Care Share foundation is a useful site for general information around teenage suicide. Most of all be patient and try to offer an ear to listen to if students need you...make the time.

Teach Mindfulness

Mindfulness is about living in the moment, teaching yourself to relax and let go of your worries this link gives you more information on mindfulness for teens. I often use minute mindfulness videos to calm a class at the start of the lesson, I can also feel myself calm as well. (I have included a video in the Toolbox). Mindfulness is a well documented and proven technique to help anyone with mental health difficulties.

Understand Attachment Theory

Attachment theory is about how we form relationships and the effect that broken relationships have on us, especially when they are broken in early childhood. Broken relationships can actually alter the structure of the brain similar to that of a victim of trauma. A useful guide is included in the Toolbox called 'A guide to creating calming environment'. Generally those students who are a little bit 'too needy' are often the ones who struggle the most with relationships, on the opposite end of the spectrum the kids who want nothing to do with you at all may also be in desperate need of support. A good general approach with students who struggle with attachments is to regularly check in with student and use a 'keep in mind' approach without being overly intrusive. LAC students or children with family social service involvement often have difficulties with attachment and early trauma.

Anxiety

This is a big cause of mental health difficulties in teens, with the increasing pressures on social media, exams, looking good etc. Students can really struggle. The best approach is to coach students into coming up with practical ideas to help themselves and understand their triggers. An approach called CBT or Cognitive Behaviour Therapy aims to re-frame negative inner talk to more positive talk, instead of catastrophic thinking CBT aims to think about other situations or examples where it did not happen. Key CBT questions include; 1. What is the evidence for the thought? 2. Is there an alternative, more helpful way of thinking? The thinking traps poster in the tool box is a useful resources to try and exam different thoughts and find solutions using a CBT approach.

Fight Flight Freeze Response

When under stress fight or flight (Cortisol Response) kicks in and logic is locked out as emotions and instinct take over- give space and time to let student get back to logical thinking---only then -start to reason out behaviours, this Cortisol response is different in different people some trigger much quicker than others and we need to plan how to reduce stress and triggers for these students.)

Resilience

Resilience training and understanding is a core principle of therapy to support students with mental health difficulties. There are specific resilience factors that can help protect a person and there is lots that schools and teacher scan do to support the development of protective factors. A great resource for developing understanding around this is the Resilience Matrix in the Tool box below. There is also a Vulnerability Checklist in the Toolbox used by some social services to assess risk that is useful to have an understanding of.

Other useful tips

• Check out this new government backed website designed to promote mentally healthy schools.
• Give students timeouts to work out what they are feeling
• Discuss any changes with students
• Include routines and establish classroom rules and expectations
• Look out for overly withdrawn or anxious students and discuss any concerns with the SENCO

TOOLBOX