Mental Health Programs for High School Students
Our mental health programs for high school students are a brilliant way for school communities to build a culture that embraces positive wellbeing. As a teacher or principle, you have a major part to play in teaching your students how to overcome life’s inevitable challenges. Our high school mental health program focuses on building resilience in students, breaking the taboo of mental health and providing students with resources that they feel comfortable accessing if they need to – either now, or in the future.
Your students will be able to better recognise the symptoms of poor mental health in themselves or in their peers, and understand how to react and how to help. headspace, our program collaboration partner provides resources and presents techniques and midfullness skillsets to students, while we take students out into nature. The full program structure is outlined below.
Using Nature to Improve Mental Health for High School Students
It is now proven beyond doubt that nature has an incredibly powerful and positive effect on adolescent mental wellbeing. High school students in particular can greatly benefit from increased calmness and ability to study with a reduction in stress and anxiety. The Government has invested millions into the 5 Ways to Wellbeing in Nature campaign, which this program directly supports. Additionally, our program structure has been modelled on the PERMA+ mental wellbeing framework.
High School’s Mental Health Program Structure
Our mental health program for high school students can either be done in the form of a full day experience, or a multi-day experience. Either way, we start the program with a morning introductory session held by headspace, usually onsite at a headspace youth visitor centre. This not only shows students their nearest headspace services, but also gets them familiar with what headspace can help them with if they need. It’s a great setting to make students feel comfortable, away from the classroom, and our morning sessions are both informative and also intended to be a bunch of fun!
After our morning session – we get right into being amongst nature. Depending on if your group does multi-day camping, or simply day experience.
Our camping program structure is based around teaching students how to enjoy nature, by showing them the basics of setting up a camp kitchen, camping tent and of course how to roast marshmallows over toasty coals under the starlight! We have particular activities and guided fire- side conversations within our itinerary that help us to reflect on some PERMA+ principles.
Our day experiences, we enjoy nature too and usually go to some local nature based experiences and attractions to have a guided reflection on the morning’s session, enjoy a BBQ lunch and possibly a campfire-side dinner too.
We take care of: group transport, catering, itinerary management, risk management documents, helping you to apply for an excursion with our pre-made information, contingency planning, staffing and activity facilitation, accommodation and camping gear, recommendations for post-camp program sessions that you can handle yourself.
Your Role to Improve Mental Health!
Teachers and Principals: Are you a teacher or principal leading a high school community? If so, then you are in a fantastic position to help improve the life of a student, and in many cases even save the life of student. With stress, anxiety and mental health cases among high school student increasing every single year, you have a lot of pressure and expectation on your shoulders to equip students with the right tools to meet these life challenges.
By implementing a mental health program for your high school students as a priority, you are doing your part to fulfil your obligation as a leader of students. You have the power to build a positive mental health culture within your high school group, which leads to less stressed students, better academic results and behaviour, happier parents, and most importantly you can save a student’s life.
Parents: If you are the parent of a high school student and have wondered if your school is really doing enough to equip your son or daughter and their peers with right information, tools and school culture, then we encourage you to speak up. As a parent, you need to speak up and talk to your school about what more they can do. A great starting point is to introduce them to our program, or to other programs you think suit their educational ‘gap’. Don’t be quiet, encourage your school to contact us as we can offer free, no-obligation sessions.
Our Mental Health Program Champions
We have, and can collaborate with any of the above organisations to deliver our mental health programs for high school students. We look forward to you contacting us and organising a possibly life saving adventure that is also a tonne of fun!
How to Create a Highschool Wellbeing Program
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