Mental Health In Schools with Prof. Willem Kuyken

07/10/22 • 31 min

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This is the first of 3 podcasts with Professor Willem Kuyken in which we discuss mental health in schools culminating in an episode about the Myriad Trial (My Resilience in Adolescence) which looked at the impact of a brief Mindfulness intervention on the wellbeing of young teens. In this episode we start with a broad discussion around mental health in young people, the role schools have in supporting mental health, why mental health and wellbeing interventions should be evidence based, what ‘evidence based’ actually means and, the challenges of delivering universal interventions. We begin a discussion of school climate and how this may be central if we’re to take a fresh and evidence-based approach to mental health in schools.

Willem references Casel in our discussion - here is the link should you wish to find out more. Another couple of useful links are Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Centre and the EEF Toolkit

Willem references Casel in our discussion - here is the link should you wish to find out more. Another couple of useful links are Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Centre and the EEF Toolkit

Previous Episode

RE-STAR: It's Time to Start Listening

This week Bee, Tiegan and Maciej, RE-STAR YRAPpers, along with researchers Sylvan and Georgia discuss their experiences of neuro-atypicalities. This honest and vulnerable discussion demonstrates why we should never make assumptions about behaviour and always be curious about the young people in our classrooms.

This is the second part of the RE-STAR podcast interview. You can listen to the first part here.

Next Episode

Mindfulness – What is it, how might it help children, teachers and schools?

In this second podcast with Professor Willem Kuyken, we explore mindfulness - what it is, how it can be practised and how it can benefit mental health. We debunk the idea of mindfulness as a panacea and explore instead for whom and under what conditions it might be helpful. We consider the many facets of mindfulness such as curiosity, kindness and compassion and how we learn mindfulness through our everyday lives and other people. We discuss how our attention has become a commodity that social media successfully harnesses and that perhaps mindfulness is a way to claim back our attention. Finally we start to think about the best ways to introduce mindfulness in schools, revisiting the idea of school climate.

If you want to hear more about codesign do listen to the RE-STAR podcasts