Mental Health PD On The Road
Project: LILY
My main interest in education has always been how schools can better support the mental health of students. It's an issue that many educators grapple with, not to mention students, parents, and extended communities of care.
One issue my colleague and I noticed is that students entering secondary from elementary often aren't prepared for the challenges to their mental health that come about in high school. Many of our students have said some variation of "I wish I had known then what to expect now". Which raised the question - why couldn't they?
Our school mental health/anti-bullying group - Project: LILY - had done a lot of great work in our community around mental health advocacy. The next step happened when a local elementary school reached out to us for a fascinating opportunity.
LILY On the Road
My colleague and I took a group of keen group members and developed an action plan to present to a group of elementary school students from Grades 6 - 8. Our presentation was twofold:
- A simplified Slidedeck with easy-to-understand mental health tips (found here!)
- A student-lead (but staff moderated!) question and answer period
The response was fantastic. Many students asked excellent questions; a few stayed behind for longer conversations with our group of youth, all monitored by the staff. Both the presenters and the audience left with a new sense of confidence in their understanding of mental health in education.
Our success led my colleague and I to try and make these sessions a regular event, and embed them in our school goals as part of our School Learning Improvement Plan (SLIP). We shared copies of our Slidedeck with the elementary teachers in attendance, and invited our superintendent to see other Project: LILY presentations at our home school.
Bringing It Home
When we returned to our home school, my colleague and I had high hopes that we could begin implementing new mental health strategies within our own community. We had ideas for mental health newsletters, a wellness room, guest speakers, a school-wide mental health survey, and big plans for Bell Let's Talk.
However...it didn't quite work out that way. We did achieve some of our goals, but still didn't have the level of buy-in from staff that we hoped for, even though our administration was in full support. This could be a result of administrative acknowledgement framing us as being allied with them, as opposed to allied with staff, creating friction (Wenner, DATE).
Top 5 Leadership Lessons Learned
1) Give Them Room To Fail
There were several reasons why this experiment could have ended badly: few of our students were confident public speakers; my colleague and I had never done this before; we had no idea how a group of elementary-aged students would react to our presentation. However, regardless of the outcome of the presentation, our students (and ourselves!) still achieved 2 out of the 3 concepts of teacher leadership that Sinha and Hanuscin (DATE) identify: leadership practice, and leadership identity. Our students began to see themselves as mental health leaders in their wider community, as did my colleague and I.
2) Collaborative Professionalism Works!
Although I didn't realize it at the time, the collaboration between my colleague and I on this project met some of the conditions of collaborative professionalism (Hargreaves and O'Connor). The results of the project reflect this: PD that was requested and delivered by staff, not admin; collaborating with students, not for them; and transitioning from comfortable conversations to challenging but respectful dialogue - namely, what schools are and are not doing to support student mental health. The collaborative professionalism model worked wonders here, and we didn't even know we were using it!
3) You Can't Win 'Em All
Despite all our efforts, there were still some colleagues at our home school who kept the same opinions about mental health - namely, that students were making a big deal out of nothing. Although this was frustrating, my colleague and I knew that we would continue to make our case. This was a good example of moving from leadership as "practice", or activities, to leadership as identity. (Sinha and Hanuscin) By expanding the scope of our practice, we began to see ourselves as leaders in mental health.
4) Get Outside Your Box
Getting Project: LILY outside our school had a noticeable effect on the program. Our students became much more interested in what they could do, and what types of audiences they could reach. We "got outside our box" in the following ways:
- Booking mental health speakers designed for parents, at our parent council meetings
- Designing PD and resources for our colleagues (like this Symbaloo page!)
- Better managing Project: LILY by creating a "core team" of dedicated students
- Running online events to foster student voice and change the culture within our home school
These encompass some of the "seven dimensions of teacher leadership" covered by Sinha and Hanuscin (DATE). My colleague and I were better able to self-identify as teacher leaders in mental health by expanding the scope of our practice and embracing challenges outside our normal locus of action.
5) Work With, Not Against
Our success on the road didn't necessarily translate to success in our home school, and we didn't always feel like leaders. Harris identifies several stumbling blocks in teacher leadership: it will succeed only if the source is trusted; it can't be implemented in a top-down fashion; and the naturally "egalitarian ethic" of the teaching profession means that colleagues may acknowledge teacher leadership, but may not defer to it. (DATE) Simply saying "this is what we want you all to do" is a surefire way to get ignored! Part of our conversation needs to be around including people, addressing their own needs, and - I think most importantly - validating their current practices. Hopefully this will bring about change in the right direction, and leave a positive impact on the mental health of our entire school community.
Share Your Thoughts!
What do you think about the state of mental health education in our schools? Do you have any great PD ideas for staff and students? I look forward to your comments!
