13 Mental Health Introduction
Dené Wamsley
“You don’t have to be positive all the time. It’s perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared, or anxious. Having feelings doesn’t make you a ‘negative person.’ It makes you human.” – Lori Deschene
The Importance of Mental Health Conversations in Education
One of the most unexpectedly difficult parts of working with students is learning how to appropriately advocate for those who are struggling with their mental health, or other difficult life circumstances. Early on in my teaching career, I (Dené) had to quickly learn how to handle difficult topics with my psychology students. As someone with a friendly face, students felt comfortable disclosing upsetting and worrying information to me on a somewhat regular basis, as well as occasionally asking for diagnosis and medication advice. The helper in me wanted to immediately solve all of their problems, but I couldn’t, and I shouldn’t. In some cases, I needed to direct students to better experts. In some cases, the student deserved to meet with a more objective listener. In some cases, the student needed to make changes themselves. All I could do was be a knowledgeable advocate and a safe person for them to trust in the moment. Sometimes, the burden of caring for my students made me feel like I wasn’t doing enough, like I wasn’t saying the right thing.
No one really hands you a manual on how to help a student who is experiencing a crisis. It was not a topic that was largely discussed in my own teaching circles. This lack of discussion leaves many of us unprepared for the moment over-disclosure does happen.
In this chapter, we will discuss several elements of mental health: building rapport with a student and setting boundaries early on, navigating over-disclosure, mandatory reporting, caring for your own mental health, and effective stress reduction strategies. In other words, our goal is to normalize conversations about mental health for both students and educators, and build up the confidence to handle these difficult situations if/when they arise.
Learning Objectives
Mental Health: Supporting Student & Educator Concerns is made up of three units: Setting Up Meetings and Boundaries, When Students Overdisclose, and Your Own Mental Health. After completing these units, coaches will be able to:
- Establish positive rapport early on with students
- Construct firm boundaries with students early on that help to protect both students and coaches
- Be confident in navigating over-disclosure during student meetings
- Classify which violations fall under the Title IX Mandatory Reporting policy
- Advocate for mental health resources for both at-risk students and themselves
- Follow-up with students who are referred to external resources
- Support students who experience disproportionate barriers to access to mental health resources
Imagine the following scenario…
Abigail is an at-risk student you are coaching, and she finally comes to meet you face-to-face for a short introductory meeting. Your goal of this meeting is to discuss her class performance, and get to know her as a student. While speaking with you, she suggests that her grades began to slip last semester after experiencing a traumatic event on campus. She doesn’t directly describe the situation, but begins to display strong negative emotions, and suggests that she hasn’t spoken about this event to any authority figure yet. Because this event is directly tied to her class performance, it can be extremely difficult to determine whether you are the appropriate person to handle this conversation. Additionally, you may ask yourself: Does this situation require mandatory reporting? Is Abigail safe? Does she need further help?
What would you do?
Media Attributions
- Man covering face with hands © Christian Erfurt is licensed under a Public Domain license
