Taking care of our mental health is at least as important as healthy eating or increasing our exercise to acceptable levels – is that ever achievable? The educational psychology service supports children, young people, families, schools and partners to think about what we can do to be mentally healthy.

The difficult news is that mental health issues in young people are increasing. Recent national reports highlight the importance of increasing access to evidence based interventions that will improve outcomes for children and young people. There is also significant importance placed on the role of schools in identifying concerns and offering early support.

In Anne’s recent blog she highlighted the importance of achievement and the link to wellbeing. Experiencing anxiety and / or low mood will impact on many aspects of day to day life, including levels of attainment. The Scottish Government is developing a 10 year mental health strategy, due by the end of the year. A recent survey of 1,483 young people aged 12 – 26 looking at mental health provision found that two thirds of young people are unaware of the mental health information, support and services that are available locally (The Scottish Youth Parliament, Our Generation’s Epidemic, July 2016).

It is important to intervene early and equip our children with the full range of skills that will support them to lead happy, productive lives. Our educational psychology team supports the delivery of effective interventions for individual children and young people to enhance effective learning and improve wellbeing. Some examples are included below.

From Early Learning and Child Care settings in to our primary schools, the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PAThS) curriculum creates a supportive environment to facilitate positive social relationships and enhance emotional wellbeing.   This curriculum offers a range of strategies to help children recognise, manage and regulate feelings. Educational establishments delivering this curriculum are reporting very positive outcomes for children and families. Join them and learn to ‘do turtle’ when things become difficult. Look out for training events throughout the session.

The Friends for Life programme is delivered at the mid to upper primary stage. This is an internationally recognised programme that teaches children techniques to cope with anxiety and promote wellbeing, enhance social and emotional skills and increase resilience. It enables children to learn a range of skills, including how to identify anxiety-increasing thoughts and to replace them with more helpful thoughts, identify difficult feelings and learn to manage them, and learn to overcome problems rather than avoid them. These approaches are very helpful for children and in my experience any adult involved also finds ample opportunity to apply these cognitive behavioural therapy approaches to their own life, whether that is preparing for a presentation at work or avoiding eating that third cake!

Within Argyll and Bute there is strong partnership working with Choose Life. This partnership has resulted in the development of guidance to support young people at risk of suicide and self harm. Regular training events are offered for staff across Argyll and Bute including Mental Health First Aid, Safe Talk and ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training). It is important that we support each other to talk about emotions and mental health and look out for the signs that someone may need more help or support, whether you are a parent, a teacher, a support assistant, a partner or a friend. We need to listen to each other better. Young people have an important view on what helps. Two excellent short films have been produced by young people at Oban High School and Tarbert Academy to support the guidance by highlighting the voices of young people. www.tigershark.tv/portfolio

Where particular mental health needs have been identified, educational psychologists can contribute to the assessment of need and help signpost to additional, more specialist support. In some cases this may include delivering effective therapeutic interventions directly with children and young people.

While we support children and young people it is important to think about our own wellbeing. The Scottish Association for Mental Health summarises some effective strategies towards better mental health.

1. Stay connected – sometimes being out at work all day I feel I have had enough social interaction but this is not the same as making time for friends and family and benefiting from that shared time. Make a call rather than sending a text or go to that social activity or club rather than hiding away on those winter nights that are fast approaching.
2. Be active – I have become increasingly aware of how much I sit during my working day whether that is driving, in meetings, answering calls or emails, and I still feel tired! Physical activity has a proven positive impact on your mental health so make that additional effort to be active at some point throughout each day.
3. Be mindful – mindfulness seems to be everywhere at the moment and we should take a closer look. How often have you driven somewhere and had no recollection of large parts of the journey or eaten a meal and had no awareness afterwards of how it tasted? Slow down, take the long cut rather than the short cut and notice what is happening now rather than thinking about the past or worrying about the future.
4. Learn something new – developing a new skills is invigorating and can increase your confidence and sense of wellbeing. Whether that is re-learning how to hula hoop (yes, honestly) or working towards being a candidate for the next Bake Off or Strictly, take the plunge.
5. Give of yourself – carrying out even small acts of kindness have been shown to boost your mood and enhance your wellbeing. As you are being more mindful, you may be more likely to notice someone who needs that kind word or offer of practical support.

Personally and professionally there is much we can do to look after the mental health of children and young people, our colleagues, our friends and family and, very importantly, ourselves. Start now!

Roslyn Redpath

Principal Educational Psychologist, daughter, partner, colleague, friend, sister, dog owner, aunt ….. in no particular order.

http://breathingspace.scot/                              http://www.chooselife.net/