Teenage Stress And Anxiety

A charity's encouraging teachers across the Kingdom to talk to pupils about stress and anxiety.

The Samaritans have launched a new resource in schools, to be delivered as part of health and wellbeing lessons.

It's hoped the workshops will help prevent instances of alcoholism, drug abuse and self harm in the future by tackling problems early.

The number of children referred to mental health services in the UK has doubled since 2012 to 8, 000 each month.

Drummond Community High School is hosting a live demonstration of the Developing Emotional Awareness and Listening (DEAL) workshops, with Samaritans’ Schools team on hand to guide the workshops and answer any questions about the resource.

“We found that the pupils in the pilot project really enjoyed using DEAL, the feedback from teachers has also been very positive, and the materials covered real-life situations which young people could really relate to,” said Elspeth McLean, Depute Head teacher at Drummond High School. “Giving young people the tools to meet challenges such as coping with anxiety, depression, and major life changes is invaluable.”

Delivered as part of Health and Well-being lessons in secondary schools, Samaritans’ DEAL aims to help young people to develop emotional resilience and it provides online materials so that teachers can discuss issues such as dealing with change and tackling depression, anxiety and self-harm.

“The earlier young people are given support to develop emotional resilience the better, and DEAL can help them with that,” said Samaritans’ Executive Director of Policy, Research and Development, Joe Ferns.

“Discussing issues such as mental health in a supportive atmosphere in the classroom, promoting the value of talking through your problems and showing young people where they can go for information will help build their well-being,."