Hearts and Hands: Mental Health Support for Schools

Welcome to Hearts and Minds: Mental Health Support for schools – a contribution by UniSQ’s Master of Guidance and Counselling students. The collection presented here aims to be a comprehensive overview of current mental health concerns in schools with gold standard interventions included. The foundation of this venture is based on focus group feedback from teachers, deputy principals, support staff, and school guidance counsellors. This from one participant: I would like to have a deeper understanding of these conditions and their impact on children, to be able to help staff improve their understanding, along with sharing effective strategies to support the students and families.

Mental health and wellbeing is at the forefront of support and intervention for schools with current indicators of wellbeing reaching significant levels of concern. As such, Guidance and Counselling students at UniSQ are mentored and equipped with skills and knowledge to be highly effective practitioners in the field. The outcomes of their endeavours are collated here.

Each category of mental health is structured within a concentric framework of the individual, school, family, and society at large. Impacts on the individual and community as well as cognitive, behavioural, and physical indicators of the mental health concern are identified for specific developmental age groups. With this in mind, it is hoped that the in-depth empirical information presented in each of the mental health categories of Anxiety, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Suicidal Ideation inform the support and intervention for students, staff, and families.