Turns Out Mental Health IS a World-Wide Issue

Rowling, L. (2009). Strengthening “school” in school mental health promotion. Health Education, 109(4), 357–368.

Apparently Australia has been nationally focusing on improving mental health via schools since the early 2000’s. They have been implementing a program called MindMatters at their secondary level to improve mental health in a variety of ways. I was shocked – how have I never heard of this before??? It’s been going on for well over a decade, and Aussie Rules football is my favorite sport! You’d think I’d have stumbled across MindMatters at some point or another. Ah, well, chalk it up to not googling “school mental health in Australia,” I suppose.

Aussie Rules!!!

Aussie Rules!!!

In this article by Louise Rowling from the University of Sydney, she reviews nearly 10 years’ worth of research and writing collected since MindMatters began, and offers some suggestions on how to make even more progress. Her conclusion? They need to strengthen the “school” part of school mental health promotion.

As I mentioned before, I had never heard of MindMatters. I obviously did a quick little Google search when I began the article, but it was actually unnecessary. Rowling really does a great job of defining what MindMatters is and why it is important. She references that MindMatters is a federally funded program which incorporates a variety of strategies to promote mental health, including “mentoring, peer support programs, pastoral care practices and structures and with specifically designated teacher roles, as well as the provision of specialist educational personnel” (Rowling, p. 3, 2009) . Rowling also finds that these strategies are best implemented within the scope of a “whole school” approach. The whole-school approach means mental health is a holistic model promoted across grade levels and subject areas. It involves everyone, including administration, teachers, support staff, students, parents, and community members as active participants, and everyone is working cohesively to meet the same goal. It makes sense that this would be the best way to go!

But Rowling also describes key areas of concern, such as the tension between the educational and medical systems. Both want to achieve the same outcome, but not in the same way, and they use different data, language, and methods from one another. When these two entities come alongside each other to promote mental health in the same setting (schools), it sometimes gets wonky. It can result in parallel systems in which both agencies are working separately toward the same goal. Obviously this isn’t efficient, but it also leads to people stepping on one another’s toes – which I presume leads to hurt feelings, frustrated workers, and an eventual decline in their own mental health – which then leads to a decline for students as well. Rowling suggests that the best way to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of MindMatters is to use structures that the school already has in place. Since the educational system is hosting the medical system, the medical system should generally conform to the way the educational system is set up. Kind of like when we went to Grandma’s growing up and had to follow her rules during dinner.

Only Grandma puts out a white tablecloth when gravy is involved…

Only Grandma puts out a white tablecloth when gravy is involved…

Rowling also makes other suggestions to improve MindMatters, based on the schools that have implemented it well. She talks about supporting “distributed” leadership, meaning supporting principals as well as leaders at other levels within the school. She also found that better professional development led to better implementation of the programs. She suggests that when teachers do not have the training and resources to effectively implement and utilize strategies, they end up feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, which leads to low morale. (Hmmm… sound familiar at all?) Lister-Brown, et al, noted, “Staff who feel unsupported and under pressure are more likely to use dis-empowering methods of control such as shouting or humiliation in the classroom” (2010) . Which then goes back to ultimately decreased mental health for everyone!

The only real critique I had of this article was that it sometimes was difficult to read. The sentence structure and length, paired with fewer commas than I’m used to, meant I had to stop and read a few lines aloud (slowly… several times…) before I understood what Rowling was saying. But I imagine that is due to the tricky Australian-American language barrier, or possibly the fact that it’s been a few years since I’ve really read scholarly articles.

I loved reading this because it opened my eyes to the reality that the world is not just America. (Wait, it’s not???) I had wanted to eventually study what other countries were doing in the realm of school mental health, but imagined their models would be so different from the US model that it would be hard to draw parallels. Not so! It looks like Australia’s system is right alongside the few good school mental health systems in America (e.g. Maryland). Rowling also mentioned several other systems in this article, such as British Columbia, Great Britain and Germany, and I want to explore them, too. I am excited to know that school mental health is important to others and that there is a solid body of research out there. The idea of trying to implement some of these systemic changes in Arizona is really overwhelming, but MindMatters reinforced to me how incredibly important it is. Mental health and its corresponding illness impacts all of us, whether directly, in loved ones, or in the affects it has on society. By improving the microcosm of schools we can improve students’ (and staffs’) well-being, which can ultimately lead to an improved society. Overwhelming aside – how can we not pursue that?

Best, R., Lang, P., Lodge, C. and Watkins, C. (Eds) (1995), Pastoral Care and PSE: Entitlement and Provision, Cassell, London.
Rowling, L. (2009). Strengthening “school” in school mental health promotion. Health Education, 109(4), 357–368.

Building Partnerships: Communities and Schools

Hands, C. (2005). It ’ s Who You Know and What You Know : Process of Creating Partnerships Between Schools and Communities, 63–84.

The journal article, It’s Who You Know “and” What You Know: The Process of Creating Partnerships between Schools and Communities by Catherine Hands is a guide to research in forming school partnerships with its community. Two schools were examined for their success in forming partnerships. The perspective of community members, teachers, parents and principals were collected and discussed. Hands explains the necessary components of forming a partnership and the pitfalls that may challenge a partnership from becoming successful. There are many benefits to be had by both the school and the community member which is fully discussed. Furthermore, Hands goes on to describe some of the unintended benefits. Throughout the article parallels are made that relate the elements of ecology to elements of forming a partnership and how they are each interdependent. Hands organization is excellent. She makes use of bold and headings to lead the reader sequentially through the steps of forming a partnership. Beginning with the introduction she describes how the need for her research is adjoined to the needs of schools that “are finding it increasingly difficult to create educational programs to address the diverse needs of the students” (Hands, 2005, p.64). In my own experience I see a greater need for change because of the rapidly expanding and diverse population. Schools are working on a paradigm designed over a hundred years ago for a population one quarter the size and even less diverse. Simply stated, schools today are not equipped to effectively engage students or supply their needs required to be successful in the world. Next, Hands outlines the problem and poses questions to the reader. This technique of using questions gives the reader a purpose to focus on as he/she reads. The questions also highlight what is important in the article. Finally, it supplies the opportunity for repetition of concepts. Hands continues by defining essential terms and ideas, followed by describing the framework of the partnering process. The reader is never left to figure out what she means. This topic is identical to what I intend to research. I don’t know whether to be happy someone else has thought of it or if I should be sad because my idea is not as original as I thought. The upside is that I plan to take it a step or two further. I want to investigate how the community partnership affects the school community and student achievement. Currently I notice “students see many academic tasks in terms of short-term learning necessary to secure a grad and do not grasp the learning’s utility in the real world beyond the classroom.” (Willems & Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.10). Hands research is easy to read because of how organizes it visually and through her use of anecdotes. She takes two pages to discuss her methodology. She makes use of an easy to read graphic organizer. She reiterates the goals of her research and then discusses her findings and more data collection. The article is so well organized; I compare it to following a street map. Hands makes use of repetition which is a valuable tool to help the reader digest the material without having to go back to recall a concept. During a recent class, our guest speaker from ASU, Dr. Audrey Amrein-Beardsley just briefly mentioned qualitative versus quantitative research in her discussion. I understand what each of those two types of research mean but I work better when I have examples. I have some familiarity with quantitative research after having taken a statistics class where we worked with numbers and values to support our findings. Now this article offers an excellent example of qualitative research. I see how data collected by interviews and relationships that work or fail. Data is collected by the success of “feedback loops resulting from communication within the networks and resultant maintenance or changes made to the relationships” (Hands, 2005, p.66). Hands breaks down the components and mechanics of how to build partnerships” with another researcher’s theory on partnership, “the relationship between systems such as schools and communities. The theory posits that there is a flow of information and resources across the permeable boarders of open systems in a way that is not hierarchical; this flow is bi-directional across the borders” (Hands, 2005, p.66). The flow of information is the communication between the school and the community. The resources are the agreed upon services that will help to accomplish a certain goal. The goal agreed on between the school and the community was that “the needs of the students were the focus and the basis for all partnership efforts.” (Hands, 2005, p.70) The next component is initiating partnerships and the first question to be answered from the community would be “”Well, what’s in this for me?” So, rather than waste people’s time, you have to present it like, ‘This is a situation which will benefit us both.’ So, yeah, I think there has to be some reciprocation. And it has to be obvious”(Hands, 2005, p.71). The schools Hands interviewed made clear that forming partnerships required a measured and well thought out approach. Businesses, organizations and social services have time pressures just like teachers so it’s important to know the needs of the community. It’s a lot like sales. I plan on selling the community with the idea that, in the classroom teachers give grades as a measure of performance and students receive them as payment for work completed. However, the rewards will be much greater when students see the work from a partnership of community and school side by side. “Children learn through a variety of social and educational contexts, and the goals for student academic success are best achieved through the cooperation and support of schools, families, and communities” (Willems & Gonzalez-DeHass, 2012, p.9) My concern is that students do not have the role models or the exposure to the opportunities with-in and outside their communities. There are so many variables to consider in helping students to be college or career ready. Many students have not been outside of their neighborhood. In further study of how community partnership will benefit students I hope to describe how students explore career opportunities, how to involve parents in partnering with the school and community, how to encourage businesses to create scholarships or apprenticeships, and how schools can help businesses to grow.

References: Willems, P. P., & Gonzalez-dehass, A. R. (2012). School – Community Partnerships : Using Authentic Contexts to Academically Motivate Students, 22(2), 9–30.