How can you help?
Over these next few pages the ways in which you and your school can help children's mental health and well being are covered.
dolor conse
06
Mental health impacts all aspects of life, which is why it is important to weave mental health issues throughout the curriculum, not just within specific PSHCE lessons or events such as Mental health week. This will normalise the subject further and develop “children’s emotional literacy and educate young people about how to recognise and manage their feelings" (Glazzard and Bostwick, 2018, p82).
As the national curriculum states teachers should deliver a “board and balanced” curriculum, this curriculum should be inclusive and enable all children to participate (Pykitt, 2019, p115). By including mental health and well-being within the curriculum children will gain an understanding of their own mental health but also others. This then supports Glazzard and Bligh research (2018, p10) that emphasised how “it is important to normalise and de-stigmatise mental health so that children do not grow up believing that mental health is something that should not be discussed”. To do this teachers need to provide safe, meaningful opportunities to discuss their feelings and experiences along with other related issues. Some key themes that Glazzard and Bligh (2018) suggests for inclusion in schools mental health curriculum are:
•
•
•
•
•
the curriculum