P4- Interview

Interviewer: Have you noticed more pupils talking about their mental health to you or any other teachers in the past few years?

Delaney: Not necessarily an increase, I think students have always been stressed in the build up to exams, I wouldn’t say there’s been a big increase in the amount of students that have come to speak to us to say that they can’t handle exam time. I think it’s normally a small handful of students that we will support in the build up to that.

Interviewer: How do you facilitate people with mental health problems when it approaches exam time or any deadlines?

Delaney: We work closely with the student services department, Mrs. Haines at school, if any students need any specialist help then there are various different organisations that we can link them up with that can discuss things on a more personal level. Obviously this would include letting the parents know as well, so it’s just liaising really with the right organisations and helping them in that way but the students have also got form tutors that they can speak to on a level and each year group has a head of year, so we do have systems where we will contact student services first, and if they feel it’s serious enough to connect to one of the professional organisations then we will do so.

Interviewer: When students have been stressed, have you seen their work being affected?

Delaney: Not necessarily, its more to do with the time management but what I have seen an increase in is students being more stressed from outside factors rather than school so students who get stressed out about the amount of workload may have jobs through the week and some students work in different places from six till ten o’clock at night through the week or they work all day at the weekend and then it doesn’t leave them anytime if they don’t manage their time in school to do any of the work, to do any of the revision etc. But also I think social media has had a big impact on the way students feel about themselves.

Interviewer: Do you think there are any positive effects that school has on students’ mental health?

Delaney: I think sometimes we are a different ear to listen to because sometimes the students, certain individuals might not want to discuss these type of things with their parents or their guardians at home, they might feel a little bit awkward, it could be something quite sensitive that’s triggered the situation, so sometimes just having somebody else to talk to, we are good listeners, that’s one thing we’ve learnt over time and as I’ve said, if something is really, really serious, we will need to report it to the relevant authorities but I think the fact that we give students time to explain things, we are always there, it’s not like in a college where it might be that you might not see the same people every day, because the same people every day, we’re a little bit more contactable