Why we need to foster the ‘root systems’ underpinning mental health and wellbeing in children and adolescents in schools
The current child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing crisis makes it clear that we need to rethink how we understand and foster mental health and wellbeing during development. To this aim, I have developed a new neuroscience-based framework explaining the processes underpinning mental health and wellbeing and their development. We can think of these processes as the ‘root systems’ enabling mental health to ‘grow’ and wellbeing to flourish. In comparison, most current approaches to mental health and wellbeing in children and adolescents focus on addressing or preventing symptoms of mental ill-health which could be thought of as ‘the branches’ growing out of the ‘root system’ processes.
There are several advantages to cultivating the ‘root systems’ of mental health and wellbeing – I call them ‘capacities’ because they can be fostered by learning relevant skills and knowledge. The first advantage of focusing on capacities rather than symptoms, is that capacities have a wider reach and impact. Different symptoms, such as repetitive negative thoughts in subclinical depression or anxiety and other conditions, share the same root capacities that we can strengthen to reduce such negative thoughts.
The second advantage of focusing on capacities is that they enable us to ‘make sense’ of the myriad of mental health concepts that often overlap. For example, both self-regulation and resilience, which are often targeted in mental health interventions in schools, share many of the same underpinning capacities. Treating them as different may make it seem like we are cultivating different knowledge and skills and undermine continuity of learning or create artificial sense of competition between approaches.
The final advantage of focusing on capacities underpinning mental health and wellbeing is that they can be readily translated into skills and knowledge that we need to foster to strengthen the ‘root systems’ of mental health and wellbeing in education. When it comes to learning such skills and knowledge, the capacities can make their progression and links between them more visible.
For example, the capacities show how fostering awareness of emotions needs to be followed by learning simple emotion regulation strategies such as emotional labeling – naming of emotions – which can reduce intensity of emotions. Building further on such skills, children and adolescents can learn to manage their attention more skillfully to both use distractions in regulating their emotions and reduce distractions to support their mental health and wellbeing. Other strategies can expand these skills further towards relational wellbeing involving building of connections, prosociality and developing a sense of purpose and meaning in life. These can support the mental health and wellbeing of young people further.
I often highlight in my research and writing that we need to start thinking of learning mental health and wellbeing skills in schools in the same way we are approaching learning to read or do maths. All these skills require careful scaffolding, repetition, time and practice within and outside of schools.
At the same time, we need to acknowledge and address systemic factors impacting on child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing. These factors include poverty, discrimination, slow action on climate and on negative impacts of social media fueled by AI and the attention economy. There is robust research showing that these impacts have negative consequences for child and adolescent mental health. They need to be addressed through relevant policy and business practice changes alongside improvements in mental health and wellbeing school curricula. My research, impact work with policy makers and writings for educators aim to contribute to these much needed changes to how we view and approach mental health and wellbeing in schools.
Accessible articles:
In response to the discussion in the media about the role of resilience in child and adolescent mental health, here is my latest article in The Conversation that considers Why resilience won’t solve the mental health crisis among young people.
In this article for UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development I discuss why and how neuroscience research can support teaching of mental health and wellbeing skills in schools. Have a read: Neuroscience of Wellbeing: A developmental educational perspective.
Public talks:
In this talk at one of the annual ‘York Talks’ organised by the University of York I explain why we need to focus on fostering capacities underpinning mental health and wellbeing in schools: YorkTalks 2022: Training softer skills for wellbeing in harder times.