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Adolescent Mental Health and Stress

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Adolescent Mental Health and Stress

By E.K.Raymond                                                                                                                                                                                           

According to the Mission Australia Youth Survey (2017) the top issue affecting young people aged 15 to 19 years, is mental health. Just over a third of respondents said mental health is their top concern, with alcohol and drugs in second. An ABC Health and Wellbeing report (2013) said a link between drugs and mental illness exists, as young people seek to self-medicate to relieve feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress. Young people in their senior years of high school face additional stressors because of the pressures that come with senior schooling, such as work load and limited time to socialise. Student stress is a major link to the issue of adolescent mental health. For this reason, students coming into their senior years may be more prone to mental illness and the self-medicating trap (Head Space ,2018).

Stress can lead to anxiety or depression in young people and may affect their ability to succeed at school.

According to “Young Minds Matter” (2013-14), mental disorders and stress are common is Australian school students (1 in 7). Students with mental disorders have poorer naplan results, lower academic achievement, and have more absences from school. In years 7-12, students with a mental disorder missed an average of 23.8 days per year compared to 11.0 days per year for students without mental disorders. Students with mental disorders also have lower levels of connectedness and engagement in and outside of school.

Excessive can have a negative impact on a student’s mental health. Anxiety can lead to depression, which in turn affects physical, emotional and mental health and therefore their ability to succeed at school.

Resilience is the ability to ‘bounce back’ after set-backs, the capacity to deal with stresses and thereby reducing the risk of developing a mental illness from external stressors. Supportive environments help young people to develop resilience, which is vital for young people once student stressors become part of their everyday lives in their senior study years. Everyone has different resilience levels due to exposer to different risk factors. This creates an equity issue.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (2012) identifies a range of risk factors including individual, social, economic, and environmental that increase the risk of developing a mental health condition. Factors such as divorce, family conflict, relationship breakdown, and abuse create a feeling of an unstable and unsupportive environment. This can prevent students from developing resilience. Not all students have the ability “bounce back”, and those students may turn to coping mechanisms such as drugs or alcohol.  This is in-equitable. Students who have a supportive environment at home have an advantage. They are often able to cope with the stress of school with support from home. Adolescents are arriving at school with negative risk factors are disadvantaged as they are likelier to develop a mental health issues.  With these given factors, schools should be looking at providing a program that addresses the equity issue by providing extra support, as well as providing the opportunity to build resilience.

“Bounce Back” is a school-based well being and resilience program. It is a positive education program that integrates the science of wellbeing with best practise in teaching and learning. The program teaches; social and emotional learning in a fun and positive way (Bounce Back, You-tube, 2018).

“Bounce Back” focuses on;

·        Building healthy public policy; by implementing policies on safety in schools to help with the equity issue.  

·        Creating supportive environments; by providing different opportunities in schools that make students feel safe and respected, to help with the supportive environment issue.

·        Strengthening community actions; by working with young people to help host activities to build resilience, which in turn helps senior students cope with the stresses of school.

·        Developing personal skills; by holding classes and teaching teachers how to help students strengthen living skills and develop much needed skills to help with the stresses of school work, ie. Resilience.

·        Reorientating health services; by ensuring staff know how to be youth friendly and use strength-based approaches, which in turn helps student feel that the teachers are safe and approachable to talk about the stresses of schooling.

This program will address the equity levels and supportive environment issues that students come to school with. It will encourage personal skills such as resilience and helps with stresses considering the factors outside of school (such as body image) that affect students in school and their ability to cope. Although this is an excellent program to run, there are also barriers to its implementation.

Barriers may include students not being able to express themselves, hiding the fact that they have anxiety/stress/a mental illness or refusing to be helped. Other barriers that could affect the Bounce Back program include cost, staffing, and the time required to teach it. These barriers could be partially addressed by running the program at a time (Friday afternoons) where teachers and students have the time to focus on this program as well as helping a student feel comfortable, supported and secure by implementing safe activities.

At some point students, especially in years 11 and 12, will struggle with their schooling and their ability to be resilient.  Stress is an issue in adolescents which is often caused by the workload and pressure to achieve academically in senior schooling. Bounce back is designed to help students develop resilience, which is vital once student stressors become a part of everyday life in senior years, when the risk of developing a mental health issue (such as anxiety or depression) is greater. The program also addresses the equity and unsupportive environment issues in schools by helping each individual student develop positive personal skills. Bounce Back addresses the five Ottawa Charter action areas and addresses barriers. The application of the program includes teaching teachers to help their students feel safe and implement resilience to help with the stresses of school and the work load that senior years come with. It is recommended that schools consider adopting this program to assist its senior students.

References[edit]

Reference list

“Mission Australia” – Youth Survey (2017). Retrieved on 20/03/2018, from Mission Australia Queensland - (pg 90-104)

“ABC health and wellbeing report” (2013) – last accessed on 21/03/2018, booklet handout printed on 1/03/18 from http://www.abc.net.au/health/features/stories/2013/06/27/3790687.htm

“Head Space” – Australian Students stressed and depressed (2018) – last accessed on 25/03/2018 from headspace website; https://headspace.org.au/news/majority-of-aussie-students-stressed-depressed/

“Young Minds Matter” – The Mental Health of Australian Children and Adolescents, Educational outcomes (2013-2014) – second survey of mental health, pg 2-3– Last access 27/03/2018

“Australian Bureau of Statistics” – (2012) – Prevalence of mental disorders -  Last accessed on the 26/03/2018 http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4326.0Main%20Features32007

“Bounce Back!” – Bounce back (2018) – Resilience and bounce back – Last accessed on 20/03/18 - http://www.bounceback.com.au/

“Bounce Back!” Bounce back You Tube – (2018) Last access on 21/03/18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=HU3DsJ5aNZw


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