Mental health of students in focus

Several schools have plans to address problems of children returning to campus

As schools gear up to reopen on Wednesday this week for senior classes, several of them are turning the spotlight on the emotional well being of their students and staff members. Students of Classes 9-12 were last on campus in April for two months before the second wave of COVID-19 struck, forcing the schools to close.

In the Statement of Procedure issued for the reopening, the Tamil Nadu government has called upon teachers, counsellors and health workers to act in unison to ensure students’ emotional safety. The school closure has impacted the certainty and structure that students had before and set back the daily routines.

Nandini Raman, consultant counsellor and secretary, Chennai Counsellors Foundation, said schools had a large role to play in encouraging children to open up and speak about how the last one year had been. “When they get back to school, they can be asked about how the last year has been and discuss both the good and the bad. There are a lot of changes academically for these senior students, and while these are important to tackle, they should be gently eased into getting back on campus and attending physical classes.”

Ms. Raman said that with a host of changes over the last year, she had worked with students who had anxiety and depression, experienced panic attacks, and displayed aggressive behaviour. “Many students are panicking about going back to school. For adolescents, there have been several changes to deal with physically and mentally, and there are concerns about how they will face their classmates and teachers.”

Several schools that have counsellors on campus have chalked out a plan to address the problems of students. “We definitely expect students to take some time to settle down to daily classes on campus. Acknowledging the mental preparedness needed, we started off with sensitising the teachers to the need for giving the students time to ensure that they ease into this routine,” said J. Alageswari, school counsellor, Shree Niketan Group of Schools. She said that while the academic expectations from senior students were high, care was being taken to ensure that there was no pressure on them immediately after they came back.

“If students have mental health concerns and need to speak about them, teachers will immediately refer them to the counsellors…,” she said.

While classes continued online for a large part of the previous and current academic years, several private schools had mechanisms for their on-campus counsellors to reach out to students and parents online. Schools have been asked to ensure that regular counselling is done for both teachers and students who are reporting mental health issues, including anxiety and depression, once they are back on campus.

Emphasising the importance of breaking the stigma on mental health, Ms. Raman said students, parents and teachers should be reassured about seeking professional help if needed.

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