What Are the 5 Essential Qualities of Schools that Practice Good Student Wellbeing?
By Tom Nehmy, PhD
They teach psychological skills:
At the core of good mental health is a cluster of essential skills known as ‘emotion regulation’. This term is actually the single most important protective factor in the prevention of anxiety, depression and eating disorders – the 3 conditions most likely to impair the mental health of young people. Emotion regulation skills include balanced, realistic, helpful thinking. And, making good decisions in the face of strong emotional ‘reaction urges’, self-control, distress tolerance and self-compassion.
Most children will require a specific, structured, and developmentally appropriate means of acquiring emotional regulation skills, which is best done in a universal, curriculum-based way that does not segregate or stigmatise. The skills and knowledge for good mental health must be integrated with nutrition education, exercise, drug and alcohol interventions and other health topics. After all, mental health difficulties are by far and away the likely cause of disease burden in young people.
They know the difference between ‘early intervention’ and ‘prevention’:
Let’s face it, prevention is hard. It isn’t as visible and urgent as putting out a fire, for example. But if you stop the fire from starting in the first place, you’ve actually succeeded.
Many school-based interventions operate under the guise of ‘prevention’ when they are actually aimed at reducing symptoms. This is still treatment; however, primary prevention leads to a lower rate of onset of symptoms over time. By teaching healthy kids to remain healthy, it is possible to provide skill-based psychological immunisation that makes it less likely they will get stuck in a state of psychological disorder, and arms them with a tool-kit for emotional self-care management in the future.
They consult scientific research into student wellbeing:
Many schools would be familiar with the term ‘evidence-based’, yet how many actually consume scientific research? By either examining controlled trials of wellbeing interventions or consulting with experts in theory and research, schools can reclaim the important phrase ‘evidence-based’ so it is more than a buzzword. Ethical decision-making requires educators to be reasonably sure that an intervention is likely to have the outcome it proposes to have. Without this, schools risk their well-intentioned actions having negative effects, where effects of harm or increased risk might linger well after the warm glow of good intentions has faded.
‘Connectedness’ is evident everywhere you look:
Schools with a culture of wellbeing are always high in ‘connectedness’. School connectedness is the total of the rapport, understanding, value and importance that each member of a school community feels in relation to the other. Perfect connectedness isn’t achievable, but if the least connected members of a school community feel relatively connected, there will be a vastly lower rate of mental health issues within that school.
School connectedness can be cultivated through specific strategies over time, and is powerful in how it cultivates an invisible thread tying the school community together.
Engaging parents is central to their student wellbeing approach:
Trying to enhance student wellbeing without fully engaging parents is missing a huge element of the process. Parenting is a constant and pervasive influence on the developmental trajectory of all students in a school. If parenting styles, parent knowledge, or the home environment are fundamentally misaligned with what we know promotes robust mental health and resilience in kids, the success of a school’s efforts will hit a ceiling.
The thing schools have in their favour is the fundamental goodwill that parents have for their children (and their children’s future). Generally speaking, parents want their child to be happy, accepted, and successful. The stumbling block is usually not the intentions of parents, but the occasionally misguided or misinformed way they may go about realising those intentions. Informed school communities can apply their good psychological knowledge to appropriately challenge parents with what we call the ‘bullet-proof rationale’.
Promote Student Wellbeing in Your School With Healthy Minds
Healthy Minds takes the sophisticated psychological skills that promote mental health out of the therapy room and into workplaces through tailored personal development programs and seminars.
Our approach isn’t designed to ‘cure’ mental health issues, but rather to ensure that communities have the skills and tools to navigate their mental health and spread awareness of what wellbeing truly looks like.
Contact us today so we can help find the right wellbeing approach for your school and students. Our director, Dr Tom Nehmy, is a clinical psychologist and happy to speak with you.
