Promoting YMH in schools and colleges
Promoting YMH in schools and colleges
Promoting YMH in schools and colleges
- Schools/colleges play a central role in the lives of young people
- School/college-based programmes are a useful way for young people and professionals to learn about mental health
- Jigsaw’s school and college-based workshops improve mental health knowledge, attitudes, help-seeking behaviours, knowledge about access to formal supports and reduce stigma.
Many young people spend a lot of their time in school or college, so these settings play an important role in their lives. The environment, relationships and opportunities that school and college provide can have a direct impact on their mental health.
They are also often the first place young people seek or get offered support for mental health difficulties. This could be through their friends, teachers or counselling supports.
For these reasons, educational settings offer an ideal opportunity to connect with young people and those around them.
Mental health promotion with staff, students and other members of the education community can help to reduce the frequency, length and impact of mental health difficulties that young people experience.
Jigsaw education programmes
Jigsaw has developed a number of evidenced-based programmes that target different members of the education community. Secondary and post-secondary students, peers, teachers, and other school staff are all part of that community. Evaluations of these programmes show that they improve the participants’ mental health literacy.
Some of the key findings suggest that the workshops improve:
- mental health knowledge
- promote help-seeking
- develop familiarity about how to access sources of support
- reduce stigmatising attitudes
- boost confidence in supporting young people facing mental health challenges.
Check out peer education for more information about Jigsaw’s peer education research.
One Good School
In 2019, Jigsaw launched a new whole-school initiative for post-primary schools, One Good School™. This programme was designed to promote and support the mental health and wellbeing of young people. It supports young people, and those around them, by working with the whole school community.
The One Good School initiative was rolled out for a second time in January 2022, and this was the first time a blended learning approach – consisting of in person and online engagement – was introduced. The mode of delivery changed considerably from phase 1 of the pilot OGS study (2019/2021), and as a result further research inquiry was needed.
Overall, this research seeks to understand how OGS is being implemented and delivered in schools and to determine if school needs continue to be met.
Jigsaw Schools Hub
Jigsaw Schools Hub was developed in 2020 to provide online information and resources to support school staff in their capacity to promote and support youth mental health and well-being within the school environment. The latest version of the JSH was launched in November 2022 and offers resources based around 5 key themes: social media, friendships relationships and mental health. The hub offers teaching aids, activities and example lesson plans based around these themes.
The hub is designed so that school staff can easily access any of the resources in the relevant lessons and to facilitate conversations about mental health and well-being with students.