Mental Health and Student Community

The Silence of Well-Being in the Cacophony of a Pandemic

-Understanding Mental Health of Students

 

We are going through a tough time. If the virus was not being enough of a miscreant, we have now civil wars breaking out, countries on the verge of war with each other, dormant racism taking a much evolved and blatantly overt form, love dissipating, loyalties shifting, and the world transforming into a melting pot of screw-ups and occasional victories. 

When the year began, I, like most people, had high hopes. And why not? It is a new year. Good things are expected to happen. And I guess with everyone being so transfixed on it being a magical year (2020, ooooohhh!), we seemed to have jinxed it. As the world settles into the new normal, our emotional demons have stepped out for a stroll although it is still lockdown. 

Mental health has been an issue that everyone big or small, rich or poor, literate or illiterate battles with. It is not one of those things that you 'cure' or 'fix up'. It goes much deeper than that. And it involves much more complex emotions than what meets the eye. We need to understand that feelings are abstract and often cannot be expressed in tangible forms or words. We might not always see someone saying EXACTLY what they feel unless they have some feelings monitor plastered on their foreheads that gauges those feelings. 

Now visualise this: You are a 11 year old child stuck within the confines of your home during this pandemic. You cannot step out to play, to visit friends, or to breathe the fresh air. You are expected to attend 3-4 hours of virtual lessons everyday during which you get to see all your friends in one frame and you go back to your life. That's that. No one asks you how you are. No one enquires if you are facing any trouble. No one seems to be interested if you are able to keep up with the pace of online learning. No one bothers about whether you are being given attention at home. If you feel upset just visualising this, imagine going through this day in and day out as a young child. Now visualise the same feelings getting magnified over the years where you have to keep up with the crowd and yet have no outlets for those repressed feelings. If you are fortunate, you will have a few people who will reach out to you and truly care about you. If you are not so fortunate, you will have a difficult time letting people know the reason behind the frown lines on your forehead even when you are smiling. 

I believe that as a teacher, one can do miracles effortlessly even while sitting behind a computer screen. It is like doing your morning meetings with our students but virtually. Spending the first 5 or 10 minutes to just ask everyone if they are happy, safe, and positive could be a start instead of jumping headlong into a lesson. Yes, syllabus is taxing. Yes, curriculum changes are needed badly. Yes, educational policies must  modify with the need of the hour. But, having happy and invested students are way better than having distressed ones. 

Research studies show that even though immunisation, nutrition, and mortality prevention are key focus areas when it comes to children [1], mental health is not given the same priority. Although our current socio-political contexts proclaim the importance of growing number of children and adolescents with mental health issues that range from depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies, there are no concrete systems in place that allow children to vocalise their concerns in case they are going through an emotional ordeal. In the light of these growing concerns, the role of the school in creating a positive and approachable school culture is therefore important. Even the latest Mental Health Care Act (2017) fails to highlight concrete preventive measures that specifically target young children and adolescents [2]. To the same effect, I have been conceptualising an idea on creating safe spaces for children to discuss mental health problems in schools. It goes with the premise that schools play a humongous role in coming up with a culture that embodies values which allows for students to explore, examine and express their barriers towards learning thereby making it accessible for them to feel in control of their own change. There is a need to curate a framework that prioritises children and adolescents’ psychosocial and emotional well-being along with their scholastic growth. Having a team of people who are equipped with up-to-date theory, research and skills based on effective practical interventions can optimally maximise the positive mental health of the students. Success in these challenges will help improve the happiness and well-being of young people; allows them to engage constructively with their peers and with the demands of academic learning; and eventually, help reduce the lifelong impact of unmet mental health needs.

It was during one of these research expeditions that I struck gold mine and found a gem of a framework called 'Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS)' by George Sugai and Robert Horner. It is a beautiful amalgamation of factors that I find to be extremely relevant, vis-a-vis, good school and classroom practices to support students at every level, strong foundational systems that are unique to each school which also promote staff behavior, and multiple pieces of data generated about students every single day that allows for better decision making. The result of all these factors working seamlessly is what gives us outcomes.

 

The reason why I fell for it instantly is because the model when put into a tiered form looks eerily similar to the topic of my previous blog post on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It has strong resemblance to the idea of fulfilling basic and universal needs of all students to aim for far and fewer students getting specialised and individualised support for complex behaviours. As the intensity of the support increases, there is a decrease in the number of students needing that focused support owing to their psychosocial and emotional needs being met at the base and following level itself. I am attaching a link to their page wherein they have explained in detail what each tier looks like [3].

 

 

A study conducted by O'Reilly, Adams, Whiteman, et al (2018) shows that most teachers can and have the willingness to support psychosocial needs of students. However, there is also a need for support within and beyond school to make it comfortable for them to do so. Teachers feel vulnerable and unsupported, lacking in skills and support systems, leading to a threat to their own mental well-being [4]. We must accept that at some point, even we will go cuckoo while we are at it every single day: lesson planning, ideating, executing, resolving conflicts, amongst our household chores. Make sure we reach out to someone in our circle who 'gets it'. Having empathetic listeners is so crucial because that support goes a long way into us having a 'Santa Claus Spreading Happy Cheer' effect on our kids as well. Upset teachers and upset students make a terrible combination and nothing good comes out of it. 

Wrapping up what I know is a long post, I would like to leave you with a few images. While hunting for appropriate pictures for this post, I came across an incredible page called 'BelievePerform'. Their images are available on Google and can be shared amongst your peers, students, colleagues, employers, parents, and everyone who impacts student learning. I am sharing a few that I loved and are well-articulated. 

 

 

Times are challenging. In the light of recent events, it is imperative that we acknowledge the importance of mental health and make it a point to reach out to our near and dear ones just to let them know that we are merely a call away and to ensure that we do talk to them if they need us. It goes without saying that doing all this for our young kids is even more important. As we struggle to find normalcy in our upturned life, let us pray that no one is left behind in this mad rush. 

 

Thank you for reading! <3 

 

 

References:

 

[1] India. (2019). Booklet on Universal Health Coverage (UHC). New Delhi: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. 

[2] Duggal, C., & Bagasrawala, L. (2019). Adolescent and Youth Mental Health in India: Policies and Programmes. In S. Bharat & G. Sethi (Ed.). Health and Wellbeing of India's Young People: Challenges and Prospects (pp. 85-120). Singapore: Springer Nature

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-981-13-6593-5%2F1.pdf

[3] https://www.pbis.org/pbis/getting-started

[4] O'Reilly, M., Adams, S., Whiteman, N., Hughes, J., Reilly, P., & Dogra, N. (2018). Whose Responsibility is Adolescent’s Mental Health in the UK? Perspectives of Key Stakeholders. School Mental Health, 10(4), 450-461. 

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12310-018-9263-6