Barring a few schools, there has been no effort to put in place a systematic school mental health program
School Mental Health Program (SMHP) is the new area school managements across the globe are now prioritizing to improve the mental health of school children. However, that is not the case in India. SMHP just like many other issues is badly neglected. In fact, there is no regulatory body that provides any uniform or
comprehensive mental health program that all schools (rural, urban, private, and public) can adopt
or follow.
The proper implementation of SMHP has also proven to safeguard the mental state of children in the formative and foundational years of their lives. Hence with the help of activities like bully control and gatekeepers training for suicide prevention, school managements can prevent plenty of unpleasant happenings like suicidal thoughts, the development of anger issues and aggressiveness in children from the very beginning.
The reason behind SMHP receiving inadequate attention from higher authorities could be the lack of steering committees, inadequate intersectional communications and inadequate stakeholders in the entire process. However, India is in dire need to implement such a program based on the PPEI model (Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention), to prevent a mental health crisis from breaking out at any moment.
Even though school managements haven’t adopted any uniform policy to assist students with their mental health, the demand for such a policy is palpable. Stakeholders like school boards have also expressed
their concerns over the same, and have also voiced for the Immediate Implementation of Psychological Services (IIPS) during emergencies like nervous breakdowns, anxiety attacks, and palpitations, in classrooms, a prerequisite in schools of today.
While several leaders have protested for the introduction of a systematic nationwide SMHP, no initiatives have been taken for the creation and introduction of such a program that can be used by schools immediately. The National Mental Health Program, a close kin of the much-requested SMHP has even advocated for the introduction and immediate implementation of the same in schools. However,
no concrete measure has yet been taken by the Ministry of Education or any other regulatory body
dealing with the health or welfare of children.
Even though the New Mental Health Care Bill talks about a few measures to address the mental health crisis among students, the general document that has been followed by schools for decades is very sketchy and has a piecemeal approach with no clear objective
Even when mental health professionals conduct awareness and sensitization programs, they confuse psychological issues with mental health and make it illness oriented. Even while suggesting activities
to curb mental health-related problems, it is evident that these programs lack frameworks and are many
times irrelevant.
What are the international guidelines concerning SMHPs?
The World Health Organization (WHO) advocates mental health interventions to be at four levels. The first is the creation of awareness for the integration of psychosocial competence in school curriculums, the second is mental health education being integrated with the general curriculum, the third is focusing on children requiring psychosocial intervention on an urgent basis and the fourth is the identification of children requiring professional and clinical help and providing the children with the same.
This intensive multilayer program thus ensures that each child irrespective of any bias or mental health issue is a beneficiary of the SMHP, and the promotion
Some region-based School Mental Health Initiatives that have been used in schools so far:
1) Mental Health Innovation Network’s ‘Mental Health Justice’ Program
It aimed to provide mental health services in schools and create a ‘replicable mental health justice programs’ in the schools of Mumbai.
2) Yuva Mitr in Goa
It is a community-based program for the well-being of the youth of the state. It includes peer-to-peer learning, awareness and sensitizing the youth, and teacher training programs.
3) SAATHI in Sikkim
‘SAATHI’ stands for Sikkim Against Addiction, Towards Health India and uses a peer education model. It advocates school students to refrain from drugs and sensitises the youth, teachers and parents about the effects of drug addiction.
