
Waiting, waiting, waiting on a waiting list - a story heard far too often.
Whilst many children and young people are waiting to be seen by counsellors or trained school staff, there is an imminent need for suitable and effective intervention and prevention to be in place. Having the awareness of mental health as covered in PSHE or Life Skills lessons is important, but do students actually know how to take care of their state of mental health; because in serious cases, weeks/months of waiting may be too late…
I have discussed in another blog, ‘How can we support students with mental health problems?’, how easy an intervention and prevention the SEJ is, and how important and necessary it is before mental health issues become too difficult for them. The SEJ is a simple, timely and effective prevention tool that anyone can learn to apply in every situation in any area of life, and with an SEJ Consultant onsite a tool for intervention. You learn it once and apply it straight away, and the result is a life enhancing change for the individual who is using the process.
Most ‘therapies’ such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy offered to students and pupils address one specific situation, and it takes 8-12 weeks with repeated sessions with a counsellor. The SEJ is a transferrable lifelong skill that, once learnt, can be applied immediately in any area of the person’s life without the reliance on external support. The cost to the educational setting in offering the SEJ is insignificant compared to the benefits in the long term.
I have shared with you in previous blogs the success of embedding the SEJ into the HEI Skills curriculum. The cost was minimal as it was offered as a mandatory life skill for their transition into university to enable them to stay mentally healthy. It was applicable in every area of their life, from their personal wellbeing to university careers. Not only that, but the skill they have learnt in addressing their own mental health is a lifelong skill they can take with them even after leaving the university. In terms of the cost of the benefits per student, it is priceless, since the question is not about how much the prevention and intervention costs to the educational setting but the value of a student’s life. When we consider this, there is only one answer, isn’t there?
Dr M Howard-Kishi
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