Giving teachers the tools to recognise and respond to students with complex mental health problems is the aim of a new Wollongong project which will run statewide.
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Project Air Strategy for Schools, a University of Wollongong initiative, aims to address the alarming rates of youth suicide and self harm.
It will give teachers, as well as school counsellors and health staff, the resources and training to identify signs of trauma and emerging borderline personality disorder in high school students.
At the launch of the project at the university on Friday, NSW Minister for Mental Health Pru Goward said early intervention was key.
‘’We know that 50 per cent of mental illness begins before the age of 14, and 75 per cent starts before the age of 25,’’ she said.
‘’That’s why it’s so important that we intervene early … and school is the obvious place to identify young people with mental health problems and start to help them.
‘’If we don’t act then these students will continue to live badly regulated lives, to struggle with study and jobs, to experience relationship breakdowns and there’s also a huge risk of suicide.’’
The project – which will receive $6 million in state government funding over five years – was designed by UOW researchers in collaboration with NSW Health and Department of Education.
It will provide high schools across the state with a range of tools – including new guidelines, fact sheets and a short film called Chloe’s Story – to support struggling students.
Professor Brin Grenyer, from UOW’s School of Psychology and the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute, said it was an extension of the pioneering Project Air Strategy for adults with a personality disorder.
‘’We know that one in five adolescents experience a mental health disorder,’’ Prof Grenyer said.
‘’This strategy will give teachers the tools they need to identify kids who are struggling, and to work with school counsellors and health professionals to care for those kids.
‘’It will give them the best opportunity to finish school, to understand themselves better and feel more integrated in the community.’’