As part of Mental Health Awareness Week May 1 to 5, schools in the Pembina Hills Public Schools promoted mental health and capped it off Wednesday with “Hats on for Mental Health.”
While it’s great the schools are recognizing the importance of mental health, a school division-wide survey paints a different picture.
The results of the annual Pembina Hills Satisfaction Survey showed that students did not think people were interested in how they felt and if people were saying good things about students. That was in contrast to how staff and parents responded.
Assistant Supt. of education services Mark Thiesen said elsewhere in this edition that this raised concerns about students’ emotional well-being and their sense of acceptance and belonging.
And although 90 per cent of kids surveyed agreed that there was one adult that knows and cares about them, that still meant 400 kids felt the opposite.
In speaking with a St. Mary School counsellor, our reporter heard positive things. Students are more willing to come forward with stressors and are looking out for one-another more often, but it’s still a work in progress.
We may know that on a case-by-case basis that things are improving, it’s hard to compare what services students are getting in that school division overall.
The majority of teenagers have gone through some sort of stereotypical “teen angst” and only the way bullies do their dirty work has in fact changed over the years.
We sometimes forget what it’s like to be figuring yourself out while trying to find a place where you feel like you belong. When you don’t belong, that can be hard to escape from day in and day out.
That’s why schools need to emphasize themselves as a place of belonging.
If teachers, administrators and parents are saying one thing and students are saying another, something is missing here and the schools have to find a way to fill the gap.
Mental health awareness needs to be an everyday thing, not just a “one-week-a-year” type thing.
