Health

Discussing way to improve mental wellbeing in a school setting

According to WHO, Mental Health refers to the well-being state of an individual in which they, can realise their own potential, able to cope with stress, work fruitfully in a productive manner as well as able to make successful contribution in the community (www.who.int, 2014). The mental wellbeing of the students within a school is required to be improved so that the children who are the future generation of the country develop effective learning to be best individuals in the progress of the nation. This is because mentally-ill student shows lack of concentration in studies and are even seen to involve in addiction to drugs to resolve their depression which is harmful to them (Shoshani and Steinmetz, 2014).

The mental well-being of a school setting can be improved by regular reviewing and monitoring of mental health of the student by a psychiatrist. As mentioned by Aldridge and McChesney (2018), psychiatrist is efficient is effectively identifying as well as arranging treatment of mentally-ill patients. Thus, the recruitment of a regular psychiatrist in the school would be able to identify student those are suffering from mental illness and provide them effective assistance to get over the situation, in turn, improving the mental well-being at school. As argued by Hardeman et al. (2016), complex exam schedule and increased curriculum pressure at school make the student feel stressed out and depressed. Thus, the school require arranging student-friendly curriculum and less complex education schedule so that the students are able to manage their studies without taking it as a burden or stress.

The mental well-being in the school setting can be improved by the authorities through arrangement of equal opportunity for the students to learn irrespective of any form of discrimination. As mentioned by Davies et al. (2015), discriminative attitude of the teacher and authorities at school makes the students feel depressed because they think that they are inferior to others. Thus, equality is to be maintained at school at all level for maintaining an improved mental wellbeing state of the students. The teachers within the school require knowing the way to interact with students so that they can arrange services to make students relieved of their stress. The students are to be provided services and protection from childhood abuse by the school so that they can resolve depression among them to improve their mental well-being.

Therefore, to improve mental well-being at school effective opportunities such as mental support and assistance, empowerment of students, equality, effective teacher-student relationship and support from the school authorities to students are to be provided.

According to the post by Norah Masango, it has been seen that the person has effectively highlighted many key aspects that are to be looked at and way to manage them to ensure mental wellbeing of the students at school. Few of the key point highlighted by the person is how gender and status discrimination leads to depression and stress among the children at school. This is a vital point because often authorities at school lack focus on the discrimination done by the teachers at school which affects the mental health of the students adversely.

References

• Aldridge, J.M. and McChesney, K., 2018. The relationships between school climate and adolescent mental health and wellbeing: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Educational Research, 88, pp.121-145.
• Davies, C., Knuiman, M. and Rosenberg, M., 2015. The art of being mentally healthy: a study to quantify the relationship between recreational arts engagement and mental well-being in the general population. BMC public health, 16(1), p.15.
• Hardeman, R.R., Perry, S.P., Phelan, S.M., Przedworski, J.M., Burgess, D.J. and Van Ryn, M., 2016. Racial identity and mental well-being: The experience of african american medical students, a report from the medical student CHANGE study. Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities, 3(2), pp.250-258.
• Shoshani, A. and Steinmetz, S., 2014. Positive psychology at school: A school-based intervention to promote adolescents’ mental health and well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15(6), pp.1289-1311.
• www.who.int, 2014. Mental health: a state of well-being. [online] Available at: http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/mental_health/en/ [Accessed on: 4th March 2018]