Mental Health and Wellbeing

Mental Health and Wellbeing at Durham Johnston Comprehensive School

Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in. Mental health is a basic human right. And it is crucial to personal, community and socio-economic development.

 World Health Organisation (WHO), 2014.

Mental health and wellbeing do not just mean the absence of mental health problems. At Durham Johnston we want all students to be able to:

• feel confident in themselves,
• be able to express a range of emotions appropriately,
• be able to make and maintain positive relationships with others,
• cope with the demands of everyday life,
• independently manage times of stress and be able to deal with change,
• learn and achieve.

To support the development of these skills each term we have a focus of wellbeing shown in this table. The areas of physical, emotional, social and practical activities are all ways in which we our students can learn to look after their own wellbeing through self-care.

Activity Type	Aims	Term
Physical activities	Learn and achieve Cope with the stresses of everyday life Be able to maintain positive relationships with others Feel confident in themselves	Summer
Emotional activities	Lean and achieve Manage times of stress and be able to deal with changes Cope with stresses of everyday Be able to express a range of emotions appropriately Feel confident in themselves	Autumn
Social activities	Learn and achieve Manage times of stress and be able to deal with change Cope with stresses of everyday Be able to maintain positive relationships with others Feel confident in themselves	Autumn
Practical activities	Learn and achieve Cope with stresses of everyday Feel confident in themselves	Spring

In every aspect of school life, we strive to educate our students and adults about self-care. As part of this selfcare offer we encourage all students to take part in our extensive extracurricular offer (please click here for more information). We are proud that our extracurricular offer enables students to take part in physical, social, emotional and practical activities which support wellbeing and begin a life journey of selfcare.

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Mental Health and Wellbeing Team

All school staff work to ensure that our students’ mental health and wellbeing is supported and prioritised. However, we do have a team of staff for whom this is a particular focus.

Mrs McFadden – Headteacher

Mrs Bell – Deputy Headteacher Pastoral/DSL

Miss Davies – Mental Health Lead/SENCO/Assistant Headteacher Inclusion

Miss Robson – Assistant Headteacher, Personal Development

Ms Walton – Wellbeing mentor

As well as our wider Pastoral Team

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Support for Mental Health

Parents and Carers

Durham County Council’s website has information about support available, as well as this document which outlines a broad range of services and sources of help.

Kooth is a free online platform run by the NHS; their FAQ page for parents can be accessed via this link

They also have a range of helpful documents which you can view below.

Students

If students are looking for support with their wellbeing, we encourage them to please talk to a member of staff in school or their family/carers in the first instance. This is a link to a list of support available to students and families in County Durham. This is also displayed in key areas around the school.

Kooth is an online platform which gives young people access to free, safe and anonymous help for mental health and wellbeing.  Students have annual assemblies or input from Kooth to raise awareness of this support.