Understanding Mental Health Workshop – 8/8/18

Ben: Survey of children and adolescent mental health and wellbeing.

 E.g. anxiety disorders, depression, ADHD, conduct disorder, oppositional problem
behaviours, autism spectrum disorders.
 Found that 1 in 7 children have a mental disorder. (It’s around 1 in 3 when
broadening the list of possible disorders)
 Most common: boys: ADHD, girls: Anxiety
 Males 1 in 5 affected
 Lower income households more affected.
 In younger years, more kids have mild disorders whereas as they get older the trend
is for them to become more severe.
 Those with ADHD are 38% more likely to commit suicide.

Long term consequences of children with mental health issues:

 Rate of self-harm
 Levels of high school graduation
 Imprisonment
 Early parenthood etc.

ADHD and conduct disorder students are around 3 years behind in their education/school
when compared to those unaffected.

Attendance also goes down.

Kids with a disorder (mostly depression) have lower level of connectedness to their class
and classmates. ADHD is only slightly affected.

Roughly 1 in 10 students that need help are getting enough/the required treatment.
30% are getting inadequate treatment
50% are getting no treatment at all

There are a number of things a teacher can do if they suspect a mental health issue – Ideas
from Mteachers:
 Chill out card
 Telling students that you come and assist/check in every 10 mins or so

Steve:

Teachers have a big impact on the student’s mental health

All of the issues start in primary school

Loneliness: It’s important for students affected to have a quality friend. It’s not about
quantity of friends.

ADHD untreated leads to bad future. Crime, no job etc.

Only 3 of 100 diagnosed for ADHD actually have it. The others have a combination of some
things.

Those with ADHD are out of control and can’t help it.
They have no memory of past things – Asking them if they remember what we learnt last
week – they won’t know.

Reconstitution can help: Sequencing behaviour in the correct order again and again, over
time.

They are messy and it is out of their control. Don’t mark them down for it.

Kids with ADHD: have perseveration – cannot change things even when they are given
feedback on the task. They stay with the initial, and struggle to move from it. These children
also have issues with inhibition – stopping themselves from saying the wrong thing.

Dual task performance can assist their learning. Doing something they enjoy whilst doing
school work.

Tips: Have questions and answers on the same side of the paper, to simplify the task.
Another way is to show a clock so that they can see how much time they have left at all
times.

Students with ADHD have low memory skills and comprehension skills. Try and assist these
students in the classroom by changing the way in which you present/teach things.

6 domains that influence positive mental health:

Academic perf, mental health, friendship (loneliness), body image, family relationships,
Belongingness.