That’s another week over and another week closer to the end of the year. Apparently this week is ‘Mental Health Awareness Week’. I often wonder about ‘awareness weeks’ and whether this actually implies we don’t need to be aware of these issues at any other time. Maybe I’m just being cynical…
I look back at my early career when mental health and well-being just wasn’t something we ever really considered. We always talked about keeping our students safe physically and emotionally but we certainly didn’t ever talk about their wellbeing. We also looked out for one another as staff but didn’t really take our mental health seriously. I wonder to what detriment? I had some really interesting training on Monday where I learned more about suicide rates and depression, specifically depression as an illness just like asthma and diabetes. I have come in close contact with people who suffer from depression and it is a terrible illness. Just like many learning difficulties it is hidden and so people don’t know when someone is suffering, especially when they are able to portray a picture of ‘normality’ to the outside world.
We were shown some rather interesting graphs of suicide rates in different countries split into gender. I use the phrase ‘interesting’ reservedly of course, simply meaning that it piqued my curiosity. Male suicide rates in the UK have seen a sharp increase over the last decades and suicide rates in the developing world are significantly lower than in developed countries (those for which statistics are held that is). My understanding is that depression is believed to be linked to neurotransmitters in the brain and apparently there is a link between living in stressful situations, for example living in a conflict zone or living in a situation where you don’t know where your family’s next meal is coming from. It is possible that this keeps the brain chemistry more level; it is possible that people in these situations don’t have the lack of norepinephrine so that their neurotransmitters are working more functionally. I do wonder whether the rise in male suicide rates over the last decades in the UK is related to the increase in gender equality, possibly because historically the man has been the breadwinner and have been the ones responsible for their entire family’s situation in life.
I am very aware that I am a layperson, and definitely not a neuroscientist (my course in Brain, Mind and Education definitely taught me that I had so much more to learn). I appreciate that by making these potential links may be completely incorrect, but how the brain works really does fascinate me. Coincidentally, I had an assembly with Y6 the next day and I really wasn’t sure what ‘story time with Mrs Westwood’ was going to look like. I am a firm believer that you are never too old for children’s books, however Y6 are at the age when finding these fun holds somewhat of a stigma, so a careful selection is important. When somebody mentioned the book ‘The Huge Bag of Worries’, I decided that would be a great book. It is one I have carried with me since I used it with my Y4 class back in the UK when I had it for a series of PSHE lessons. My class back then had several children living in very difficult circumstances and they carried huge responsibilities. (If you haven’t read this book, I would definitely recommend it, even for us as adults.) It very much linked which what we were listening to during the training - about reaching out to others. In the story, the main character Lucy found support in a neighbour. She had gone through all of the possibilities in her friends and family and had discounted them because of what she perceives their reactions to be to her saying that she was worried about things.
As I said, I have a long history of people I know who sessions from depression and I look back and I wonder whether I was able to help. Whether or not I was able to say the right thing, I was absolutely trying my very best to be supportive. I’m definitely not dismissive, but I still wonder whether I actually was. Somebody said something to me which really made me think; If something terrible happens to one of our students, we never want to look back and realised that we had missed something when, during primary school, they made reference to suicide. We need not to dismiss it as overreacting, we need to check back in with them and make a note because who knows, a picture may appear and it was just the beginning of a child’s cry for help. Safeguarding isn’t just about child protection in the sense that those of us not-so-recently-trained in UK were almost conditioned to think, it’s also about well-being. It’s about mental health, emotional health and physical health.
Gosh, that was quite a deep though for this week! I would like to finish by saying that I hope that if there are colleagues or friends out there who maybe would like to talk (scream, cry, shout) anytime (an old Samaritans advert, I believe), there is always somebody to speak to about anything because no matter how small, if it is important to you it’s important and your feelings are valid.
On a lighter note I would like to wish my Muslim friends and colleagues Eid Mubarak for yesterday and I hope start the coming months that the month of Ramadan has given them some support for whatever they need.
I’ve got the Smooth Operators playlist going this week and it’s Eva Cassidy Song Bird. It’s also been through Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics and Lighthouse Family’s High! Apt or incongruous?!
Well, it looks like the sunshine of last weekend is no longer (for the foreseeable) but I hope everybody has a safe and happy weekend regardless.
Happy Friday everyone!
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