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According to a 2016 report by youth mental health service, Orygen Youth Health, suicide rates among young Australians are at their highest level in 10 years.
A.P Osborne, the acting headmaster (Term 2) of Blue Mountains Grammar School, knows all too well how serious the issue of student depression and suicide is..
Osborne is a pioneer in proactive and inclusive youth mental health and well-being framework design. He has also been nationally recognised through his work to address the issue of rising youth depression and suicide.
Osborne is currently running campaign to promote mental health and well-being through sharing his own story and encouraging students to talk openly about the issue and their own battles.
The talks are part of a broader program aimed at making students feel comfortable talking about mental health problems.
Osborne told The Educator that the most powerful attributes of the program were “proactive inclusive approaches that are intuitive to the students’ needs”.
“The framework that has been established is ‘closed loop’, that is it does not have an end point. It is model that promotes flourishing to continue, rather to get to a set goal and or level,” Osborne said.
“The phases of the framework we use are heavily influenced by student inspired and created initiatives that are driven through in-house research and constant collaboration and communication with students.”
Osborne said the ability to be brave and courageous and have foresight is imperative in the program’s approach.
“The other area is providing daily space for intentional dialogue between staff and students that promotes richness in relationship and effectiveness in listening to students on an academic and heart level,” he explained.
“Deliberately choosing to use time and resources daily to inspire hope and safety in our community is vital to flourishing.”
‘A national crisis’
Osborne said that in light of numerous efforts across Australia’s school system, schools are falling short of the mark when it comes to proactively address the issue of youth mental health and suicide.
“There is national crisis in Australia at the moment. That is first thing we need to realise,” he said.
“We need to stop using band-aid tactics to try and curve the rate of mental health issues and suicide.”
Osborne said schools must become involved in investing time, energy and resources in finding “the unique problems” connected to their communities.
“This applies geographically, culturally within our schools and generationally with the students for whom we deeply care for,” he said.
“There is a need for a national approach towards building a safe, inclusive and proactive approach to a Mental Health and Suicide Curriculum that is not afraid of addressing the awkward, the panful and the fearful issues of identity formation, the future and security that Australian young people are facing.”
Osborne said that due to the projected changes in learning that will take place over the next decade and the ways schools need to be intuitive about this change, the way that principals need to change and adapt is imperative also.
He said “the key determinants” for schools is to have the following in place:
- a Head of Wellbeing that develops a ‘framework’ approach across the school. This means integrated ‘visible’ wellbeing throughout each area of the school.
- School psychologists that carry caseloads but also implement PD, and positive psychology practises.
- Youth workers in schools to bridge the gap between students and teachers
- Spirituality framework that fosters human flourishing as its most vital goal
- Relationships with cutting edge research and universities so that schools can be implement new approaches as they are released.
“Schools are unique entities and we need to remember we educate the whole student and not just their brain,” he said.
“We need to purveyors of hope.”