Pupils Emotional Health & Wellbeing - Department of Education, Northern Ireland

Pupil Emotional Health and Wellbeing Programme

The Emotional Health and Wellbeing of pupils has been identified as a priority for action at Ministerial level.

Emotional wellbeing is critical in developing a healthy successful school community including developing a pupil's social, emotional and behavioural skills. In September 2007, the Department began work in partnership with all key statutory and voluntary and community sector stakeholders and interested parties to develop a 'Pupils Emotional Health and Wellbeing (PEHAW) Programme'. The programme focuses on positive prevention by building coping skills in children and young people and complements the personal development strand of the curriculum.

With additional funding of £2.5million made available over 2008/09 to 2010/2011, the learning and outcomes from the post primary programme will be built upon. The emphasis in the first year will be to engage with professionals to identify appropriate options for primary and special schools; engaging with CCEA on how to support the Personal Development strand of the revised curriculum, developing standards and commissioning training materials. The upskilling of teachers will follow.

The Programme will contribute to the building of resilient emotional health and well being of pupils. It is intended to be a vehicle for providing the "glue" to integrate individual policies/services such as all non-academic and curriculum activities affecting pupils such as counselling, pastoral care systems, suicide prevention, anti-bullying, discipline process and the healthy schools initiative in a consistent and coherent way.

Designed as part of the Department’s Pupils’ Emotional Health and Wellbeing Programme, a series of materials on 10 topics of concern to young people and sources of support has issued to post-primary schools, libraries, youth clubs and parent groups. The materials are revised annually and are produced in a range of formats - diary insert, poster and leaflet.

It is hoped that schools will continue to use the topics within homework diaries for the 2012/13 academic year and the other materials will provide teachers with scope to use them in the classroom to link to topics with non academic/curriculum matters affecting pupils. A useful Teachers' Resource complements the other materials.

Independent Counselling Support Service for Schools (ICSS)

Access to professional counselling support is now available for young people in post-primary schools during difficult and vulnerable periods in their lives. Counselling contributes to tackling barriers to learning which may result from personal trauma, difficult home circumstances, stress, bullying and child abuse.

Young people can self refer to this service as well as being referred by the school. A minimum amount of counselling time is allocated to those schools which use the service. 98% of post-primary schools are signed up to use the free service.

Schools in the post-primary sector report that the availability of the counselling service has been a major boost to their capacity to support young people.

The ICSS is provided under contractual arrangements by organisation(s) that have undergone a public tendering process. The service is delivered using standards and protocols based on good counselling practice within the organisational context of the school. Links to the ICSS Operating Handbook and Practice Standards can be accessed below:

Delivering Keeping Safe Messages to Primary Aged Children

The Department of Education commissioned the NSPCC to carry out research on the delivery of "keeping safe" messages within the primary sector. The research sought to establish with all stakeholders (children, parents, teachers and school staff) their understanding of "keeping safe" and then with each group consider what might be required to underpin an effective safeguarding programme.

The main findings are that children's understanding of "keeping safe" needs broadened beyond physical safety and accident prevention and that teachers and other school staff, working across all school types, reported feeling ill at ease and a lack of confidence with regard to teaching sensitive messages around child abuse, bullying and domestic violence.

An information pack, containing 5 separate reports on the different elements of the research and a summary report issued to all primary schools in the week commencing 21 November 2011.

A copy of the summary report is attached at the link below:

The following detailed reports are available from the NSPCC website at the link below:

Establishing the need to teach "keeping safe" messages in primary schools in Northern Ireland: What do children currently know and understand?

The views of principals, teachers and other school staff in relation to teaching "keeping safe" messages in primary schools in Northern Ireland.

Consulting with parents to promote their involvement in teaching "keeping safe" messages in primary schools in Northern Ireland.

The views of cross-sector stakeholders in relation to teaching "keeping safe" messages in primary schools in Northern Ireland.

The development of effective preventative education in primary schools in Northern Ireland: exploring practice, policy and research implications.