A New Brunswick school district is taking a unique approach to helping students who may be suffering from a mental illness or crisis by implementing mandatory training for staff beyond the classroom.
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The Anglophone East School District is not only training its teachers, but is also having bus drivers and school custodians take the training – members of the school community who are often very important to students.
“We have relationships as bus drivers with our students on the bus,” said bus driver Matthew Tully.
Though he’s only been a bus driver for two years, Tully said he’s already seen more than one of his students in distress.
“We hear things and we hear conversations and we hear things going on and we have to make sure that they are dealt with in the appropriate manner,” Tully said.
A recent StatCan study shows nearly a quarter of a million Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24 have had depression and suicidal thoughts. The research shows that five per cent of this age group had gone as far as making a suicide plan, and two per cent had made a plan in the last year.
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Those are troubling numbers to Brenda Mawhinney, a mental health awareness trainer for the school district.
“It does make me sad that some students feel that they don’t have another option,” said Mawhinney.
Mawhinney said about half of the staff in the district have already completed a course developed by the Canadian Mental Health Association called “Changing Minds.”
She said even the custodians and bus driver are required to take the training because of their presence in students’ days at school.
“They are often the first people they say hello to in the morning and they are the people they see last at night so I think it’s really important that they have that information as well,” Mawhinney said.
Tully, who has family members who suffer from depression, said he has learned a lot from the program, such as how to better understand the thought patterns of students who may be suffering emotionally and to realize that when someone acts up on the bus it could be a cry for help.
“When you stop to let the students out maybe you can hold that student back for a minute and ask you know, ‘why were you doing this?'” Tully said.
He said that is a conversation worth having if it can stop even one student from turning to suicide.
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