Supporting students' mental health

Transcript

NARRATOR: In this Case Study, Brandon Taylor from TAFE Queensland talks about supporting students’ mental health.

BRANDON TAYLOR: Hi, so I'm Brandon Taylor. I'm the Mental Health and Wellbeing Manager here at TAFE Queensland, working across both our staff and student body. I can tell you that Mental Health First Aid is a program that, approximately 3 years ago, 2023, we took a really broad view across the entire organisation, and thought, how can we do this in a much more coordinated, strategic manner? Because we've got a lot of teachers that would like to have the basics of mental health first aid to support the student body.

NARRATOR: Why start this practice?

BRANDON: So over a number of years leading up to 2023, my role as the Student Support Manager back then, before I became the Mental Health Manager, more and more teachers and industry trainers were seeking advice about how they could best support their students. Students who either were very openly sharing disclosures of diagnosed mental health, but also, as many, if not more, students who seem to be going through a period of time during their studies when they were not well. They were not coping, and there'd been a change, whether that was a heightened level of anxiety, or maybe early signs of depression and withdrawal. And our teachers wanted to know, how do I engage? I want to support this person to actually maintain their studies. They've shared something with me, or I've noticed that they're not their normal self, they're not traveling well, and I just don't… I don't want to start a conversation that I don't know how to finish. I'm not sure how to say, “How are you? How are you traveling?” And I don't want to say the wrong thing. That was particularly common, teachers didn't want to say the wrong thing. So they cared, they were invested in their students, but they didn't want to get it wrong. So they were really looking for advice and guidance as to how they could best approach their students.

NARRATOR: How was this implemented?

BRANDON: We made a decision quite early on, for a number of us who'd completed our own mental health first aid training, that we wanted the training to be contextualised. So, the training itself, we know is evidence-based, it's tried, it's tested, it's proven. But we knew that if we had 20 teachers in a room from a whole raft of different industries, in and around that training course, they would ask questions such as, “Well, what's our policy? What's our procedure for manning this situation? What are our actual in-house supports?” And for an organisation like ours, that has over 60 training sites across Queensland, I might have a staff member in Brisbane say, “Well, what's local that I can support this young person to, or refer them to?” And that would be very different for a staff member in another part of the state who might have a completely different local service. And we just wanted them to be able to have conversations with the staff, not just about our own student supports within the organisation and locally to the campus, but also, what does that mean for our staff specifically? For them to look after their own mental health and wellbeing, their own resilience and boundaries. So we felt that in-house was going to be very suitable for us, and we had a lot of facilitators in-house with the skills to do that.

NARRATOR: How has this helped students?

BRANDON: I think for a student with a mental health condition, having a teacher who's got a much more informed understanding of common mental health concerns in Australia, their signs and symptoms of anxiety, of depression, particularly, not exclusively, but particularly those common mental health challenges, means that the teacher is able to have a much more informed, open conversation with confidence. Not to make any assumptions, not to make any guesses about what might be happening, but to give them the structure of a mental health first aid conversation, to ask questions that are relevant, to listen without judgment, and to be able to encourage that young person to the appropriate professional supports. And for the students, I think, knowing that this was somebody who was trained and understood, not to case manage the individual, but to have that initial conversation frankly, means it's a safer environment. It's a more inclusive environment. It's a more accepting environment. And it's actually okay to share your challenges, it's actually okay to share with us what those concerns might be, so that we can effectively then work with you and consult with you, “How best can we get through this? What does it mean for you as a student?”, whether you're a young student straight out of school, or you're a mature-age student going through a career change and retraining. So that was really important. And we get some wonderful quotes from our teachers, and I'll read one here for you from a faculty director called Lauren, who said, “For me, being trained in mental health first aid meant I felt comfortable dealing with various situations that students presented with, and I had the confidence to know how I could help them. It also helped me understand what the fantastic supports are that are available, and it just felt good to know that I could help the student.”

NARRATOR: How do you know it is working?

BRANDON: We actually carry out surveys with our staff, and we follow up with them after their mental health first aid training, both at 3 months, 6 months, and at 12 months, just to see how they're traveling. Is there any further, sort of, training or supports that the teacher actually needs, or the industry trainer? The overwhelming feedback that we receive is that confidence that when they recognise those signs or symptoms, even if the student hasn't disclosed, they're able to have a conversation with the student, “How are you traveling? How do you think you're going with your studies?” And the teacher knows that they've got this framework, this structured conversation, should that student wish to then disclose. And importantly, if the student doesn't wish to disclose or share any information in the moments, I often call us, ‘the teacher's able to leave the door open’, so they can do that check-in, that informal check-in with the student, maybe in a couple of days' time, or next week and that's just about planting the seeds of a little bit of rapport, a little bit of relationship building, and essentially trust. It's okay. And if the teacher follows that conversation, we know then that the feedback from our students and our student surveys, that they felt safe, they felt that that trust was there to share, and it doesn't mean that they have to share all of their life details, but they're okay to put their hand up and say, I'm actually not traveling too well at the moment, and we can have a conversation about how we can maintain the study. So, a lot of good feedback from both staff and students.

DARLENE: How can others do this?

BRANDON: I would encourage any smaller RTO, simply small steps. With anything to be successful, your initial small steps. If you, yourself. or a couple of your colleagues have the opportunity to attend a mental health first aid course yourself that's where I recommend you start. Go along, get the basics, because it's not just going to be good for your students, but it's also good for working with your colleagues. And then you will be able to see those clear benefits when somebody attends a mental health first aid course, and what that potentially can do for your business. You may not need to train anybody up within your organisation to be an instructor, but there's a wealth of very good, qualified mental health first aid instructors that you can tap into. They'll be able to work with your business. So Small Steps and Mental Health First Aid themselves and their website is very helpful.

NARRATOR: What is the future of this program?

BRANDON: So, we currently have 11 staff who are based around the state, who are either teachers or work in student support roles that we have trained to actually become mental health first aid instructors, so they themselves deliver the standard mental health first aid course to colleagues across the state. What we've found is that, we actually don't now have to promote the running of courses very much because the demand is there, because the participants who've attended can see the value. Usually what they're asking for is, when can I do my refresher training? So we've now extended those instructors to be able to deliver a half-day refresher course. We provide support to those instructors, just so that they can feel supported and reach out should they be required to. Now, at TAFE Queensland, we obviously have a significant number of students who are First Nations. We also, teach and work in communities that are predominantly First Nations colleagues and students, so, we've actually sought expert First Nations mental health instructors to come in and actually deliver those courses. We're currently having conversations about whether we can train up internally our own First Nations instructor. So standard mental health first aid is very good for anyone, but we're certainly delivering more First Nations mental health first aid than we used to, and we're very pleased with how that's progressing.

NARRATOR: What advice would you give to others?

BRANDON: The message that I would say to other vet providers is really simple, and it's part of the messaging going back to 2023 and earlier. We know that the vast majority of people will experience a mental health concern or a mental health illness for the first time during those adolescent years, particularly we're talking, sort of, 16, 17, through to early 20s. That's gonna be at least half, if not the majority, of your students. So regardless of anything else, they are going to experience a mental health challenge, probably while they are a student. And it's not as difficult as people might think. We're talking common mental health concerns, levels of anxiety, level of depression, that can really disrupt a young person's life and it can really disrupt how they study, how they focus, their relationships. But just some simple, non-judgmental, compassionate conversation is incredibly powerful and it actually enables a lot of our students to maintain their studies. Just the understanding alone can make a world of difference to the person having a difficult time. And of course, what we don't talk about enough is mental health. It's the key aspect of recovery. It's the most important element of any mental health concern, and study and training plays a big part in that recovery journey. So, small steps, don't be afraid of it, embrace it, because your students will be very grateful of it in the years to come.

NARRATOR: This video was developed by the Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training in partnership with the Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.

For further information on building inclusive practices and supporting students with disability, visit our website adcet.edu.au