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Joint Committee on Education and Skills díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 21 Feb 2017

Positive Mental Health in Schools: Discussion

I remind members, witnesses and those in the Public Gallery to ensure their mobile phones are switched off for the duration of the meeting.

Today's meeting is taking place in order that the joint committee can examine the topic of mental health in the education system, including the development of coping skills and resilience that is so important for all of us.

There is a conflict in timing in terms of the Seanad. The Minister for Education and Skills must speak in the Seanad at 4.45 p.m. Unfortunately, Senators from this committee will have to pop into the Seanad to make their contributions. They have assured us that this meeting will take precedence and that they will come straight back to hear all of the evidence today.

On behalf of the committee I sincerely welcome the witnesses. We have Mr. Paul King, lecturer and programme chair, school of human development, Dublin City University. He brings a world of experience and research to today's topic. We also have Mr. Shane Martin who is a brother of our esteemed colleague, Deputy Catherine Martin. I was fortunate to attend his book launch on this area. We are delighted to have him with us to share his expertise and research. We also have Dr. Tony Bates, the founder of Jigsaw, the national centre for youth mental health. In my teaching days I was fortunate to listen and learn from him. A survey I conducted with a number of schools in my constituency revealed that they found the Jigsaw programme to be excellent in terms of promoting positive mental health. Last but not least, we have Mr. Peter Hussey, who is a good personal friend of mine. I have seen a lot of his tremendous work in this area. He is the artistic director of the Crooked House Theatre Company. He does a lot of work in this area with young people from all different age groups. He lectures in theatre studies in Maynooth University. He has done a lot of improvisation work with young people to help them deal with issues that can impact on their mental health. Yesterday I read an article in the Irish Examiner by Keith Walsh, who is a DJ . He said that if he could change one thing in education then it would be to have drama encouraged more as it would give young people a lot more confidence to deal with issues. It is very exciting to have these expert witnesses present.

I want to acknowledge the visitors in the Public Gallery. I welcome Mr. Caolán Dundon, Mr. Elliot Nolan, Ms Éadaoin Barrett and Mr. Jerry Chikwe-Iwu from the Crooked House Theatre Company and Ms Carmel Daly from Jigsaw.

I draw the attention of witnesses to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given. They are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. I also advise witnesses that the opening submissions and statements they have provided to us will be published on the committee website this afternoon.

Members are reminded of the same long-standing parliamentary practice.

I call on Mr. King to make his opening statement. He will be followed by the other witnesses in the order of seating. I propose that we take statements from the four witnesses and then members will have an opportunity to ask questions. Mr. Hussey has a PowerPoint presentation. When we reach it, the committee secretariat will ensure that the equipment he needs is in working order.

Mr. Paul King

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the invitation to attend here today. I am grateful for the opportunity to address this significant and crucial issue of positive mental health in schools.

It is a positive and welcome development that despite the prevalence of mental health issues in society, over the past number of years there has been a greater appreciation of mental health being an important issue for young people. Quite a considerable amount of evidence has been gathered over the past 30 years that tells us what works and what is helpful in assisting young people to manage and work through issues of mental health. That is all welcome. The impact of some interventions includes, for example, the impact it has on the academic learning of students, staff well-being, pupil well-being and the development of what one might call social and emotional skills among young people, as well as improving what might be called a risk behaviour and helping young people to deal with mental health problems. All of that is very welcome because sometimes we can be quite negative and regressive in terms of wondering whether we have moved or advanced. It is not all regressive and, in fact, we are heading in the general right direction.

I would like to make two principal points. First, there is a temptation to believe that promoting and encouraging positive responses to mental health might be met through the application of curriculum reform, measures and interventions, all of which are really important.

However, notwithstanding the value of formal curricular interventions, the recently published guidelines on well-being for both primary and second level schools and the recent guidelines for well-being in junior cycle foreground the presence of culture, ethos and environment in promoting a dynamic, optimal development. Such a relationship is at the heart of this and my colleague in DCU, Dr. Maeve O'Brien, talks about the care ethic principle in this regard. We need to hold in our minds that while we can advance many positive initiatives, at the heart of the issue is promoting, encouraging and developing the experience of positive relationships for young people. It involves learning about well-being but it is also for well-being.

I welcome the work of the national task force on youth mental health, which brought together a number of bodies with an interest in this area, but educators on the ground might not know what is happening so we need to make the work more cohesive and integrate it into the experience of students and teachers. I recommend a national forum specifically dedicated to the mental health of young people, not to replace the existing national task force but to have the specific purpose of working with teachers at primary and secondary level.

Teachers are saying they know what to do and how to go about it but the challenge for many educators is time. A whole-school approach is now a core aspect of mental health and this needs sufficient allocated time, particularly at second level because primary school teachers have the advantage of having one class and they know their students well. Second level is more disjointed so it would be positive to formally allocate time for people with real passion and interest and who can support a directive, a strategy and a proactive response to working with students to promote a positive mental health culture in schools.

A lot of interventions are targeted towards young people and these can be very effective but teachers often have a sense of feeling inadequate and, while they wish to embrace the important issue of mental health, they also feel a lack of capacity at times. It is important to work with teachers and encourage their desire to work with young people to enhance their development. We also need to give teachers support because there is an expectation that teachers can be caring experts in school but that is not the case. They need support. There may be a need for specialised interventions, such as guidance counsellors and mental health professionals, but there is a need for specialised support in some sectors and Dr. Tony Bates of Jigsaw provides some of this. I am not sure we have enough to deal with the plethora of issues facing schools. Perhaps a feasible solution is to designate a team of mental health professionals within a region to respond to the needs of all its schools, rather than every school having a professional mental health practitioner.

I welcome the targeted programmes and interventions but I am concerned that some of the interventions tend to be imported from other cultures and communities. They have a great richness and evidence-based practice behind them but there might be some merit in looking at what we can do within our own cultural experience. We are somewhat behind other countries in terms of cultural mix, development and growth and we need to respect the fact that we operate at a different pace. Our mindfulness programmes come from different countries such as the UK, America and Australia and there might be an opportunity to cultivate similar programmes from an Irish context, which would be equally respectful of diversity.

I thank Mr. King and I am particularly grateful for his recommendations because it is always very useful to discuss specific interventions. The Department and the NCCA will be before us in the next session so hopefully something concrete will come from it. We will take questions later.

Mr. Shane Martin

Ar dtús báire, caithfidh mé a rá go bhfuilim an-sásta bheith i bhur measc inniu agus an t-ábhar tábháchtach seo a phlé libh, ábhar faoina bhfuilim fíor-phaiseanta agus díograiseach. Go raibh maith agaibh, ar dtús báire, don chuireadh. I am a former secondary school teacher and the first 13 years of my working life was in school. I had an Irish and history degree and ended up in special education for nine years. I moved on to psychology and, after qualifying from Jordanstown, I worked with adults with mental health difficulties with the national training and development institute, which is now the national area network. When I studied psychology in Belfast I had noble aspirations to help those who became unwell but that job placed me in the town in which I lived and that was life changing, as I discovered there was no group that needed to be attended to as such. Instead, all of us need to stay well. I had my first past pupil as a psychologist by Christmas of the same year and it took about two years to reach a level of competence, as with any new job, after which I began to wonder whether psychology came in too late.

We always have to reach out and help people who have symptoms and offer them pathways to well-being and happiness with evidence-based strategies. I told people what was wrong with them, what caused it and what to do next. As one grows into a job one discovers there are different ways of approaching it. I often look back on my teaching career and see that there is sometimes an obsession with mental illness. While we need competence and compassion, I often wonder if we have failed to sow the seeds of mental wellness within schools. We give a huge chunk of our life to education and primary and secondary education, in particular, can either be a very positive or a very negative experience for children. A lot of students left school without the toolbox to cope when things go wrong. Life will challenge us, we do not have control over everything and things will happen that we do not necessarily want to happen.

I began to think it would be lovely to merge my skills as a teacher with my knowledge base as a psychologist to reach out and harness resiliency in communities in Ireland. As a consequence, I was asked to speak in schools and I have spoken in many schools. As a former teacher, I know I could probably never return to teaching because it is a different job from the one I left. I know teachers are expressing a sense of overload because there has been so much change and there is now so much accountability. When I was teaching, there was no such thing as an inspection and there were no lesson plans. Teachers are under serious pressure. Many of them feel their job circumstances are posing challenges for their mental wellness.

There is massive scope to harness a culture of resiliency within schools. I am aware that simple things can make a significant difference. The teachers in our schools probably do not know that the wonderful evidence-based things they are doing are making a meaningful difference. It is wonderful that the establishment of well-being teams has been promised as part of the new junior certificate programme. The pastoral care teams that are in most schools do powerful work to reach out. The teacher in a mainstream school who has primary responsibility for learning difficulties or special education might be perceived as the only person who deals with that area, but the truth is that every single interaction between every teacher and every child in that school is critical. Science now knows more about those who survive crises. I have counselled past pupils who achieved great results in the leaving certificate but crumbled to pieces when they faced their first crisis in university or the workplace. We need to think outside the box when it comes to our young people. We need to be resourceful in how we engage with them about their mental health. Schools need to empower their students with a toolbox for coping during the inevitable crises and challenges of life.

In recent decades, psychologists throughout the world have learned more about resilient people who thrive despite adversity, achieve positive outcomes despite setbacks and misfortune, and sustain their health during testing times. Within a few years of taking up my position as a psychologist with the national learning network, it started to dawn on me that I needed to consider whether this research could help us to develop initiatives that could foster resilience in school communities. One sometimes hears people saying positive and well-intentioned things. Someone recently suggested to me that we need to bring resilience into schools as soon as possible. The reality is that resilience is not a module within a course or a subject in its own right. A school can cultivate an ethos or culture of resilience by taking a whole-school approach to it. I have done a great deal of work with principals and deputy principals throughout the country because I know there is a critical need to make school management aware of evidence-based approaches and initiatives. We sometimes make the mistake of assuming a targeted group needs resilience. When schools are preparing sixth class primary school pupils, they should not focus exclusively on children who are in difficulty. I would never want that to happen because it assumes not only that such children need this help, but also that children getting ready for first year in secondary school who come from happy homes that give them a sense of security will always achieve greatness and positive outcomes in schools. The reality is that all children need resilience skills. A whole-school approach is needed.

Our research indicates that four key areas make a critical difference to ensuring the desired outcomes are more likely to occur. The first of these areas relates to caring relationships. In some cases, the teacher is the critical person who is beside the child during a difficult time, who believes in him or her and who gives him or her a sense of belief and self-esteem. This is happening, perhaps indirectly, in schools. All teachers need to know they have the potential to offer this form of support to all students. UCD research on the concept of a "significant adult" has shown that if parenting is weak or non-existent, tragedy has struck a home or a child has learning difficulties and feels hopeless, it makes a considerable difference to the child if he or she can interact with a teacher who cares for him or her.

Our research also shows that better outcomes can be achieved if teachers and schools have expectations for all students. There can be an obsession with academic brilliance. Schools tend to be adjudicated within their own communities by the results they get. As I suggested earlier, some children who achieve greatness in the leaving certificate by getting well over 500 points crumble to pieces when they face their first crisis in their first term in university. We need to ensure there are high standards of academic brilliance. All children should be stretched to their capacity in terms of their intellectual ability. A teacher in a school who shows the same passion and interest in someone achieving 200 points in the leaving certificate is making as important an intervention as a teacher who encourages someone who is taking seven honours subjects in the leaving certificate with the aim of getting more than 500 points. Children and particularly teenagers are intelligent because they notice very quickly if other students are receiving more attention. I am not saying that happens in general, but it can happen indirectly. We nearly need to legislate within a school community to ensure all children receive feedback about how they are doing and how close they are to the targets they set for themselves.

The third vital area shown by our research is the need for opportunities for participation. Many children who come from unhappy homes or have had trauma in the past can shine in school. It is important for teachers to understand that all children must be allowed avenues to tap into their own talents and strengths within the school community. Sometimes schools make the mistake of appointing leaders as prefects. Maybe they should be teaching leadership to everyone, thereby allowing every student to be open to the concept of leadership. It is important to allow all children to shine, for example in school concerts. There might be students who have talent in art but are not doing art. Students with musical talent might be studying physics instead of music. It is possible that the greatest failing of education is that we are sometimes more obsessed with deficits, disadvantages and disorders than we are with strengths. Some schools in America are formally assessing children for strengths at intake to ascertain what they are uniquely brilliant at and to give them opportunities to shine in those areas and feel involved in their school communities.

The fourth key area revealed by our research is social connectivity. There have been massive changes in that regard in recent times. I often feel that even though houses are closer to each other than in previous times, people have never been further apart. There can be children on the same road who do not know each other's names because of the different avenues for social connection that now exist. I refer, for example, to the revolution that has taken place in social media. The point I want to make about social connection is that the more friends young people have, the better. It is a critical skill.

I have often said that sometimes the greatest friend of depression is solitude. One does not have to live alone to experience solitude, one detaches oneself from the people with whom one is living. How many families sit around a table anymore and hear each other's stories of the day? Schools have to initiate attempts to connect children to their community, in particular, and allow them opportunities to volunteer in their communities and to participate at all levels within the school community. Even those who appear to be reluctant at the beginning can sometimes shine when given trial periods of responsibility and become hungry for more of it when they realise they have that capacity.

I have made a number of recommendations, which I will not outline in detail now. The main one, and I am passionate about it, is that the wonderful teachers in our wonderful schools do not necessarily have to become experts in psychology to make a difference. They do not have to take on extra courses or more work on top of the work they already do, but they must be affirmed in terms of the science that shows that certain interventions which are taking place in school by certain teachers or interventions that all teachers can become involved in make a difference to more children in the schools. I would love resilience to be a core module within the teaching qualification at primary and secondary level and to see professional development around the unique culture that is necessary to ensure that resilience is more likely to be fostered. The good news is that very simple things make a huge difference in a world that has become far too complicated.

I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to mention some of the matters about which I am passionate.

Thank you, Mr. Martin. Undoubtedly, any of us who has had the benefit of having an inspired teacher can feel the impact and see the legacy for our lives. I invite Dr. Bates to make his presentation.

Dr. Tony Bates

I will pick up one or two themes from my colleagues, Paul King and Shane Martin, and build on them. I will focus my thoughts on the problem of fear. Fear is pervasive in our schools, both among significant numbers of students and among teachers. I will propose three simple, but revolutionary, ways that I believe will reduce fear.

I will first talk about students. In 2012, we did the My World Survey with 700 school-going students aged from 12 to 18 years. Anxiety was very high among one in three of them. It was much higher than expected and higher than depression, anger, stress and other issues. A teacher in Tramore recently told me that in the last ten years each cohort of students she has seen has been more and more anxious, one more than the last. Interestingly, she said they were more anxious about smaller things, as though they have lost a capacity to deal with some of the issues. There are very real reasons that they are afraid. Certainly, in Jigsaw we see fear as the major reason for anxiety. It is fear that they are not good enough, do not have what it takes, that they will let us down and that failure they have experienced in the past will be their experience yet again and it is only a matter of time. They are on tenterhooks. They bring all of that fear packed in their backpacks every morning, so it is hard to learn and pay attention. When they do not learn and they fail at school, that further reinforces a sense of not being good enough and it appears to reinforce the thing of which they are most afraid. This leads to drop-out. It leads to a great deal of attention-seeking and distracting and disruptive behaviour. It also can have a very negative impact on their colleagues in the classroom. That is the student sphere.

Regarding the fear in teachers, many of the problems in society are landed at the doors of schools and teachers are expected to pick them up. We expect a great deal of them. The reality is that they are ordinary people doing an extraordinary job, but with very little support and particularly around mental health issues. We have given them a great deal more responsibility and autonomy in this area, but we have not backed it up with the supports they need in terms of their confidence, their abilities to engage on these issues and the supports they need from outside that can surround the school and bring some measure of comfort to teachers that when somebody is at risk they know there is a pathway to care for that person.

We found that teachers are afraid. In the past year I have visited many schools and listened to many teachers. The most common word I have heard is "spooked". They are quite spooked by certain behaviour such as self-harm and suicide across school populations and terrified that if they engage with something they might inadvertently make it worse, or that the person might then do something terrible and they would feel responsible. I was in a school last week where there has been a suicide. The teachers feel quite shattered and more afraid of all the remaining students. That has a very contagious effect on them.

I should also mention that while schools can be very frightening places for students and even teachers, they can also be immensely protective places for mental health. This is perhaps the strongest argument for building more capacity in schools. Young people coming from painfully toxic family situations can find a different experience of themselves in schools. They can take on a new identity where they are believed in and encouraged in what they are good and best at in their lives. That is a remarkable gift of schools.

With regard to fear, let us think about how fear is reduced. It is a practical problem for any of us. It is reduced when there is, first, some safety - it can be a person or a place - where we are allowed to express that fear. For most people, we are allowed to articulate it. However, we can also be allowed to express fear in art and in theatre. Then, and this is important, we are allowed to hold it in mind. We are allowed to sit with it and think about it, until some creative and meaningful insight comes about what we can do next. Young people need that from teachers but a teacher cannot offer that unless they are feeling somewhat calm and safe, and they cannot feel calm and safe until they have a means to be held and supported by each other or by people who might work with the teachers to give them an opportunity to talk these things through. Teachers do not so much need solutions as they need opportunities to think about what is happening in their school at the time. They are very creative people. When they are given those opportunities solutions emerge that none of us could think of and that are not written in books, because they are bespoke solutions for that child or school. I have seen this many times and can give examples if asked.

For the last couple of years Jigsaw has been working on a notion of a listening school, a school where it becomes possible to listen to all the voices and all the players so we begin to get a sense of what is happening in the school with the students and we begin collectively to take ownership of this and work out what to do. We have worked in several schools in Meath and the work in Meath was part of an Oireachtas report some years ago. The committee asked for recommendations, so I will discuss what I would like to see happening and what we would propose to make happen. We have all articulated concerns about schools and particularly about the role of teachers, who are the carriers of change. Government may instigate change but teachers will carry that change. They must feel ownership and confident. However, what is their experience and how capable do they feel around mental health? What is helping them and what is not helping them? We do not know this. All of us have informed opinions and anecdotes, but we do not really know. It would be interesting to think of how to gather that data in a nuanced way. We have some thoughts about that which I can refer back to.

The second issue is that if what teachers need most are opportunities to think through what is happening in their experience with students, how can we create time and shared learning opportunities for them to come together?

That may be done by bringing together clusters of five or eight schools. I have held many teacher meetings, with anything from ten to 80 participants, where people take time to think through what is happening in our schools. Sadly, they are often held in the wake of suicide and it is part of a debriefing but those moments allow people hear each other speak about what they want for their school. There is a great opportunity through communities of practice to have teachers take ownership and learn from each other, as well as learn from us.

Finally, it is to bring services closer to the school. We do that but teachers need to know there is a safety net for them and for their students when issues emerge that clearly indicate that a person is at risk. It can be a nightmare at 5 o'clock on a Friday evening when they are just about to go home and something comes up or 12 noon on a Tuesday when they do not know where to turn. We need to mobilise those services to support them and not leave it all to them.

Our vision for schools is to improve the health of schools to ensure they are healthy, not unhealthy, places and that there is a change of ownership throughout the entire school. That requires listening to students. I did not say enough that one of the aspects central to all our work in schools is to have the student voice, and we have young people here today, spoken in key meetings in schools. It is both calming for teachers because they hear what is going on and their great fear is that they are not picking up what is happening, but also in terms of the creativity of students. Whether it is through student councils or peer mentoring, these are fabulous ways to get young people involved. Generally, there needs to be an ownership around that. There needs to be enhanced collaboration between schools and agencies, more capacity given to teachers and active engagement with young people. It is about fear and us listening to what is happening, and creating opportunities for teachers and students to listen to themselves and each other.

I thank Dr. Bates for his thought-provoking contribution. I call Mr. Peter Hussey who will make a PowerPoint presentation. To a certain extent we have been speaking about formal education but the link with informal and non-formal education is hugely important. It will be interesting to listen now to the voice of somebody who works with young people on education in the community in terms of developing the skills we have been talking about.

Mr. Peter Hussey

I thank the panel for their insights, which were very interesting. This is one sliver of an approach that, in my experience, works in developing resilience. I introduce it to the members because I believe it is timely in light of junior cycle reforms where drama is introduced into the secondary school curriculum and where it is possible it will be introduced in the future at senior cycle. The approach I refer to involves youth theatre, which is very different from speech and drama, musical theatre or stage school. It is a unique type of work, and we are one of many youth theatres in the country that works in this area. We are all under the umbrella of an organisation called Youth Theatre Ireland, which was formally the National Association of Youth Drama, based here in Dublin. It is an amazing organisation that supports youth teachers with training, provides opportunities for young people to become involved and works with people to become facilitators of drama during their period of training with a programme called ArtsTrain.

To take up on what Dr. Bates said, in the past ten years I have found a change in the people who come to our youth theatre. They have moved from being eccentric and outgoing to people who are shy. We are seeing more shy people. A huge number of young people who have anxiety present to us, perhaps by their parents or on the recommendation of their teacher to come to the youth theatre. That profile of person has greatly increased. It is mostly the case with young males but also with females. That piqued my interest, largely because I wondered why somebody would consider that drama would be a place for somebody with anxiety yet, instinctively, I knew the reason. I began research and I am now researching a PhD in Maynooth on examining why that might be the case and whether this art form develops that particular resilience. I have paid a good deal of attention to my work and to the opinions of the young people and the research spoken about. Much of what I will talk about is based on the findings of that research.

The first point I would make is that we are not like school in that groups come together in ensembles and stay together for a long time. Their decision to be part of the ensemble is their own and the length of time as part of the ensemble is however long it lasts. There is no set time on it. Usually, it is between four and five years so there could be a number of these ensembles in a youth theatre at any one time.

It is not like school in that the learning material as to what will happen, and a lot happens, is not set out in advance in the youth theatre over the course of someone's one or two years in it. They do not know what will be involved but they do know will probably be fun and creative in some way. It is not broken into modules in the way it is done in second level, for example, where there might be a module in the Stanislavski method or in physical acting. It is integrated throughout performance, rehearsal and workshop. Strict attendance is not adhered to. There are no registers other than for child protection reasons and nobody is punished or otherwise about attendance. That kind of environment does not exist, nor is there any benign propaganda. By that I mean that nobody will tell the young person that this will be good for them and that they should take part in it. There are no known conclusions. For example, if we start a project we do not know that it will be about how bad drugs are for them, which is benign propaganda. It is true but it is not a conclusion people know before they start the project. They do not know what they will learn or discover as they undertake the project. Instead, there is a kind of pedagogy of surprise, which is based on what I have been looking at and reading about as part of my research. Most people who come in do not know what will happen next month but they know it will be good and that there is an opportunity for the quality and ambition of the work to be good or at a high level. They do not know how they will learn or what they will learn until they discover it themselves. We are providing a space for them to discover this learning about themselves, the world and social systems through the actual process itself. Nothing is set out or flagged in advance.

The young people discover that being flexible is a huge skill so they can take up invitations such as this one to come before the committee at reasonably short notice. To present here, make presentations or do performances in a matter of weeks at various places and so on, they must be flexible. They know the learning programme may change radically from one year to another depending on who comes into it or whose needs are being met. Overall, we get a sense that it is about creating adventures. Youth theatre is about creating adventures in learning with young people, and they are very much directors and owners of that. They determine the rate, the pace and the nature of the learning that goes on but primarily they learn unexpectedly; it is learning by surprise. They learn by doing something and reflecting back on it. In that way they realise they did not know that about themselves or that they had no idea how something worked in society until they did the show or went through the process. All of that motivates attendance and generates engagements. Those are the two major aspects that are behind the idea of building resilience.

In recent years, we discovered from my research and also from informal interviews that approximately 75% of our young men and 54% of our young women revealed that they have generalised anxiety disorder. A huge number of them attributed that to events in school. That is not to say that they all see school as a negative place because, as was said correctly earlier, most find a level of enjoyment at school but parts of the school programme trigger the anxiety.

One must channel those impulses into something creative, rather than turning them inwards and repressing one's desire to speak. One must also control over-reactions to things or people will say that one is over-acting and that the performance is bad. One learns to manage how one deals with situations of crisis. Finally, managing impulses is not just about calming people down. It is also about encouraging them to speak up. If one has an impulse that something is wrong and one wants to sedate it, one can do that in the drama process. Otherwise, it is very flat and boring.

Love, family and belonging are the traditional values that people associate with a youth theatre which is an intensely creative and collaborative experience. Belonging to a group is very important. One young person spoke about being secretly suicidal and planning his suicide until his first show, when he got a round of applause. He did not think anything of it until he got that round of applause. He felt that if the audience, who did not know him, applauded what he was doing then it was a short enough step for him to appreciate the person doing it, namely, himself. That changed his life.

In terms of recommendations, first we must continue to support youth theatre provision in this country through Youth Theatre Ireland. Ours is one of the few youth theatres that is funded regularly by our local authority, which is marvellous. That shows a huge understanding of and investment in youth theatre. We also need to look at the CAO system rather than schools themselves because a lot of stress on young people comes from the expectations around points. We must examine the requirements for entry to university and consider the inclusion of things like involvement in youth theatre. A controlled, monitored and possibly assessed involvement in a youth theatre programme run by Youth Theatre Ireland for a year, for example, could yield a certain number of points for young people. That could be implemented fairly easily and would encourage participation by young people.

In terms of the provision of drama at second level, there is a notion that drama can be taught by anyone but we would never accept that concept in terms of music or art, for example. We would not accept that a physical education teacher could teach music or that a maths teacher could teach art. Drama is a discipline that requires an enormous amount of practice, skill and training. To do it right, to bring about all of the outcomes about which I spoke, requires trained pedagogues. To do it wrong creates exactly the opposite outcome. It furthers the stress and increases the torture that young people feel, if they are in the wrong environment and made to perform without any preparation. We all have memories, from a very young age, of having to stand up and sing something when we were not ready.

It often has a lot to do with each other in terms of bullying for example. That is well known and well researched at this stage.
What school does not offer, however, and what this pedagogy of surprise seems to offer is what we call "an aesthetic engagement". That is completely missing from their lives. An aesthetic engagement is, in a way, a counteractive to everything else that is going on. It is basically the opposite of an anaesthetic engagement where they are anaesthetised in every other part of their lives. Aesthetic engagement involves four things; emotion, intellect, body and imagination working at exactly the same time. It is very hard working. One does not put oneself through that every part of one's day because it exhausts one. In the research, people are saying to me, in particular young men, that when they come into the theatre programme, they forget about the stress for a brief period or about the anxiety. They are so in the moment that it is sort of an act of mindfulness. In the moment, they are making work that involves all those four things and does not focus on just one, which school does at certain times. They leave the space refreshed. It is a sort of oasis for them to escape what is going on. The anxiety comes back when they go down the stairs or go out into the street and it comes back later on.
However, three of four people said interesting things to me. They said they were so attracted to this that they started to look for other opportunities and began to take part more and more in the youth theatre. Over a period of time, they began to experience different types of mental process. My research and cognitive neuroscience, in particular, look at what happens to the brain of an actor and a young person when we do collaborative theatre and shows that all of these hormones and drugs cascade through the system when one is involved in an aesthetic engagement. Cortisone is usually there when one is not but just has anxiety and stress. That damages the brain in the long term. Adrenalin is there as is serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin, which is really significant because it encourages them to feel that people want to love them. After a performance, there is a huge coming down because one is really recovering from the dose one has just got of everything I mentioned. Eventually, young people find that their neural pathways are repatterned. They lay down new connectors and habits of being which is one thing that happens without them ever thinking about mental health. It is just from engaging in this kind of collaborative creative activity.
Performances are about a range of issues. They are not flagged in the sense of saying we are now going to make a performance about mental health or well-being. It is an open place where their issues are developed and performances come out of them, such as this one, which was about school and the issues they felt about it. That is why I agreed with Dr. Bates when he said this was when they were expressing their fear, held it and made something out of it. That was one a few years ago. Other ones are about how they respond to themselves as performance images. That is, when they are performing, the different facets they play using dialogue and scripts to make small talk. The act of being in a theatre itself helps them to understand the different roles they play, including backstage or using costumes and so on. Crucially, they have to understand how to be looked at as everybody in this room needs at some point to understand that one is looked at as a public figure making public speeches. I am sure nobody teaches the members that they have to feel how it is when people are staring at them quietly, assessing them as they speak. That is a huge thing for teachers but also for performers. It is the main part of the training we are giving them. It is about what goes on in one's body when that happens.
Other work looks at how one can use the stress one feels to create excitement about one's performance or an opportunity coming towards one. Using stress rather than misusing it is a key attribute. They also look at relationships and the society around them. Some theatre is made on their issues so "Indigo" was made before the marriage equality referendum two years ago as a piece to explore their reaction to it. Even though none of them were old enough to vote, they wanted people to hear what they had to say. They explore concepts of gender and beauty which are also themes that come from them around how society makes young men and women. This was reflected in a production called "Flawless" which we brought to France. Other people work with us to do research, including Sarah Meaney who is currently making a PhD on how some schools ease out those who do not belong. She says that, in a sense, no one is expelled anymore. They are neglected or pushed to the side. Her thesis is "Dropped Out or Kicked Out?" and she uses our actors and their experience in schools to dramatise the stories of those who have had this experience. Our young people understand what the process is about by doing that.
Our most recent piece is "Venetians", which was two weeks ago, in which we looked at migration. They are really affected by the issues around migration and want to explore that. In so doing, they are not just looking at the stories of people from Libya or our new communities who are in the youth theatre, but looking also at those who have left Ireland and who are older members of the youth theatre. Some send back monologues saying what it is like in Australia and why they will not come back. Some who have come back have said why they were going to. They are also looking at the theory of migration and this idea of a desire for a better place, to live elsewhere and for a better state of being. They look at aspects like personal relationships and how our relationships are about power. They consider how teacher-student relationships are about power and how space around them, like this space, works in terms of status and power. That will not have escaped them, in a sense. Neither will the school place where they are learning. They find themselves quite passive in that environment where the teachers are the active ones doing all the doing while they do all the receiving. That comes out in their exploration of power based on personal relationships. As such, the collaboration they do is risky because mostly today education is driving us further and further towards an individual engagement with material and an individual reflection on it rather than towards working in a team or group where one has to take risks. I think this is one of the big aspects of school and I hear my colleagues say the same thing. One just does not know what the outcome will be when one is working with other people. One does not know how it is going to end. One has to take risks about making decisions about the outcome.
They understand how to use failure. All theatre is about failure. We could not possibly rehearse if we knew it was going to be perfect. Nobody is going to get a script and say "Learn the lines and we will do this show on Sunday". One has to rehearse in order to see what can go wrong and use that as the basis for one's work. Theatre helps them defer gratification and this is one of those skills that build up resilience. It is about working and planning today to have a major reward after one has put in a great deal of work. Another notion being discussed is the idea of progression. Many people with anxiety and depression feel stuck but when they compare what they are doing in theatre and how they are learning, they can see the progression they are taking. This is not a thing that holds them back. Rather, it means they can apply it to their lives. Using information is a big one. I believe that in school they are mostly encouraged to ask for permission to do things rather than to use information. It is not only in school but outside. They need permission to speak or to be somebody. That concept of having to ask for permission before one can act is alien to theatre and would not produce any kind of theatre if it were implemented. Instead, one has to use all the information around one. One must read groups or individuals and their intentions. One must read other actors, see where power is happening and what is likely to happen and act on that. One commits to action based on one's use of information. It is a massive change in their way of thinking and it is the key for our young people in developing resilience rather than passively being overwhelmed by information, stuck or internalising it or not having the agency to deal with it.
Finally, managing impulses is another major one for collaborative drama.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hussey. I am just thinking of the stress we were all under less than 12 months ago in the context of the general election. We spoke to so many different audiences and groups. One such audience stands out for me. Kildare Youth Theatre brought together all of the candidates from all parties and none and really grilled us. I was so full of respect and admiration for the young people involved, in terms of their honesty and integrity. It was very clear that they had come through a process that made them confident about putting their arguments forward. A great service was done by bringing those young people together and informing them about all of the issues related to elections, civic dialogue, civil society and so on and then affording all of the candidates the opportunity to interact with them. It was tough, I must say, but well worth doing.

Before I go to members, I must say that the four contributions this afternoon were absolutely fascinating. We have all learned a lot. It is great to have really strong recommendations that we can bring forward. There was a great deal of commonality in the contributions from witnesses. When the phrase "exciting chord" was used I was thinking of teachers facing 35 or 36 students and trying to create adventures in learning. That is so important but so difficult to do.

I am a former teacher, as are Deputies Carol Nolan and Catherine Martin. In terms of curriculum development, particularly at second level, far too much time is focused on acquiring information rather than learning key skills to enable students to navigate the world. As all of the witnesses have said, the skills of critical and creative thinking, processing information and working with others are absolutely essential to enable young people to navigate their way in the world and to prepare them for life, not just for employment opportunities. Far too often, the emphasis in schools is on getting points, going out into the world, getting a job and becoming an economic unit within society. The emphasis must be on far more than that.

In terms of the tough job that teachers have, the overwhelming emphasis on points for third level and students scoring high in the State examinations, is not supportive of them. The publication of league tables, for example, is something with which I fundamentally disagree. It is not the teachers' fault but the focus of their work is on the provision of information. For the student, the focus is on the retention of that information. Our teachers face enormous demands and we need to do more to identify and support great teaching. That point was made clear in all of the contributions in terms of how we need to support teachers and students, both inside and outside the classroom. We need to involve the whole community in order to achieve greater social integration and to deal with the various issues that arise. Over 2,000 years ago Aristotle celebrated education as "an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity". We are certainly going through a crisis now, not just in Ireland but around the world, and education can be an agent of renewal in terms of how we go forward.

This committee must consider its role carefully in terms of what we put forward to Government. I apologise for speaking for so long and now invite Senator Ruane to speak.

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I apologise but I am under time pressure so would be grateful if someone could give me a nod when Senator Devine starts speaking in the Seanad Chamber, at which point I will have to run. I hope I do not leave too much out and I will catch up on the remainder of these proceedings later on.

This is an area in which I have a keen interest partly because of my own experience of school. As a 13 year old I was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder but this was not recognised at school. I would like to read the PhD on kids who are either neglected until they leave or are expelled because that is the case for many children who pose difficulties within the classroom. I understand that teachers are under great pressure but as a working mother, I am very conscious that schools often have more access to children than parents. That places an enormous responsibility on teachers who are the primary care givers for children for a huge portion of the day. The witnesses spoke about the capacity of teachers and this is an issue of huge concern. How do we build on the capacity of teachers in order to give them the confidence to intervene when it is necessary to do so?

I made a submission to the Minister for Education and Skills in response to his action plan in the context of teacher training. It was not focused specifically on mental health but on taking a holistic approach to education and examining the inclusive education module in the teacher training programme. My submission mimicked Dr. Austin O'Carroll's model for doctors who work in areas of deprivation and applied that model to teachers who work in such areas, encouraging them to take a much more holistic approach to education.

Many of those teachers could act as mental health service providers. Being much more understanding of the context in which they are working, they can act as a signpost and see when an issue arises.

A comment was made on encouraging children to work or get involved in their own community. The difficulty I have in envisaging this coming to light is that the schools are very much dissociated from the community and have not become the centre of it in the way they should. How do we build the relationships so that when a mental health issue arises for a child, the teacher can say he or she has a direct contact in Jigsaw or any given service? That flat-level communication and conversation is not happening. We can provide something in the school but if the school is not in conversation with the community and the services, we are fighting a losing battle.

I liked Mr. Hussey's presentation. My daughter, who is an actor, was the lead in the film "I Used To Live Here", which was based on Dr. Tony Bates's article on cluster suicides. My daughter spoke publicly at the time about how her playing that role alleviated her suicidal ideation. Is there room for theatre providers to examine the role of role play within the school in regard to mental health? I know my daughter's playing of the role of a suicidal child allowed her to go through the process and come out the other side with a different view. What role could theatre play in regard to role-play?

I held an event in Tallaght recently called Tallaght Talks. It was a raw event after a cluster of suicides in the Tallaght area. We had all the service providers there and we had the young men and women whom one usually cannot get into a room. I developed a White Paper based on the event, which I shall publish in the next few weeks. I will send it on to those present. One of the main themes from the day was not the individuals experiencing mental health issues but the first responders. With what do we need to equip schools, teachers and parents to be first responders? This comes back to the fear of being the first responder. What does it mean in terms of introducing material on the curriculum but not equipping teachers to be first responders?

Go raibh maith agaibh as ucht teacht anseo inniu agus cur i láthair chomh mionsonraithe a dhéanamh. I thank the delegates so much for their detailed presentations. I commend them on their excellent work on children's mental health, which represents such a vital field. I, for one, welcome that, finally in recent years, the spotlight is on our children's mental health and on placing it front and centre in education. I have just a few questions.

Mr. King is a great advocate of mindfulness and has an excellent knowledge base. Is he in favour of his programme being integrated into the school system or rolling it out in general? How does he envisage this happening? At what age should we start teaching mindfulness? What standard of training do teachers need? Is there a certain qualification? Is mindfulness suited to all children or not? Is there a danger also? Do we have to be very careful about how mindfulness is delivered in our schools?

It is very important that schoolchildren receive support with mental health issues but sometimes the teachers are forgotten about. How can we support our teachers? If we are talking about positive mental health in our schools, what is the position on the whole school staff and community? How do we encourage and ensure positive mental health among them?

At the beginning of Dr. Bates's submission, he referred to post-primary schools. Does he work with primary schools? If not, why? Is it a matter of resources? I am curious about that.

Do schools refer students for the wonderful supports that Jigsaw provides? If so, how is it done? Is it done by the principal, a specific teacher or guidance counsellor? Is there any way of monitoring an identified child when they leave school, or is the child suddenly left without the supports? Can students always access the external supports they need? Does it vary according to the luck of the draw based on where one lives in the country? Are there considerable waiting lists for the supports?

Mr. Hussey referred to the aesthetic engagement that is not available in our schools. Is there potential to provide that in our schools? I think specifically of the new junior cycle and the short courses. I have taken on board what Mr. Hussey said on the need for delivery by experts in the field. Can short courses be designed and given in certain schools? Should we be considering this? The NCCA has a short course on artistic performance but does it take on board any of the expertise to which Mr. Hussey referred regarding aesthetic engagement?

I commend each and every one of the delegates on their very insightful presentations. The content was very impressive. Dr. Bates founded Jigsaw. We have a branch in Tullamore, in my constituency. It is doing very well along with other mental health organisations. What impressed me very much was the fact that there is a youth advisory panel. The young people are leading the organisation, which is fantastic because they obviously influence their peers. It is a very good way to structure an organisation. I commend Dr. Bates on that.

I am aware of the guidelines on mental health presented to primary schools. Will a programme be rolled out at national level? If so, access to counsellors will be required. Would it be best to do that through the HSE or NEPS, which we currently have in schools? If we introduced a positive mental health programme, would it be best to introduce a programme on its own or integrate it into the SPHE curriculum? The latter would be ideal for a strand on a programme such as one covering mental health. This is vital in our schools. As a teacher, I note the need for it has increased dramatically over the past ten years. It is something we need to be on top of, and we certainly need to have our teachers trained and prepared.

I was going to ask a question similar to that of Deputy Nolan. We have NEPS but do not really have clinical or therapeutic psychology within the education system in general. Could that be examined? There is obviously considerable reliance on charities and other external services and the general health services. That could be examined. A point in Mr. Paul King's presentation that struck me concerned curriculum time. It is always the problem when one mentions any subject or issue. It is always said there is not enough time. Someone told me, "Get rid of Irish and religion and there is time for everything". I do not know how time can be made available. Theatre is Mr. Hussey's area. There are other areas of interest that people could focus on. Perhaps we should be considering this in a more formal informal way, if one knows what I mean, outside the school system so there would be some structures so children could be directed to practices they would like to engage in. For many, it might be theatre. Parents always tell Members there is nothing for children to do in their area but when one drills down, there tends to be many things. Perhaps, however, there should be some way of connecting with the schools to direct parents to where organisations are in their area. Crooked House is presumably very well known but there are other bodies doing similar, although perhaps less structured, work of which parents simply might not be aware. Mr. Hussey's suggestion on the points system - I am not saying I am going to endorse it immediately - is very interesting. I refer to extracurricular activities or the type of outside-the-school event that could relieve some of the pressure on the timetable. It does not have to be held in a formal way.

I thank the delegates. This is an issue I have been exploring as education spokesman. I admit that every time I meet our student groups within the party, they always ask about youth mental health, mental health in schools and the education system.

The political system has to provide the answers younger people are demanding from us as well as our peers.

I apologise for being late but I have just arrived from west Cork. I have a number of questions that may have been asked. One word that always troubles me in this debate is the word "mental" and the association it has. Perhaps that has been addressed but I would be interested in the thoughts of the witnesses. Those working in the education area become terrified when I speak about teachers taking responsibility for, or playing a role in, mental health education. They think they have to have a masters in psychology to deal with these issues whereas we are trying to promote well-being.

I refer to the role of teachers and school staff. Is that the best way to address the issue? What are the thoughts of the delegations about whether mental health education should be integrated into various subjects or taught on its own? I wish them well in their endeavours. Everybody identifies that as the top priority and challenge for the education system. A happy child will learn; an unhappy child will not. It is as simple as that and anything else is subservient to this issue.

Nothing can be more important in our education system than developing young people who are confident and who have the ability to achieve their full potential in whatever role they take in life. The contributions the delegations have made to the committee have given us a great deal of food for thought. With regard to KYT, I am interested in the interaction with the schools. Is there a structure whereby teachers can recommend students to go to KYT after school? Is there a semi-formal relationship between Jigsaw and schools? Jigsaw does terrific work but I refer to counties that do not have a Jigsaw centre or a centre run by a similar group. How do we go about ensuring a presence in them? I appreciate that much of this goes down to State funding. The same investment needs to be made in this type of education for young people as other types.

Dr. Tony Bates

I thank everyone for their interest, questions and compliments about Jigsaw, which are great to hear. Jigsaw is a community service for young people and we decided on the 12 to 25 age bracket rather than primary age because we know that that is the most vulnerable age for the emergence of mental health difficulties. It may not necessarily mean mental illness but it can become that. Mental illnesses start as anxiety and depression and, without care, they grow legs. During my 30 years in St. James's Hospital, I saw people constantly who had been through many admissions and who said, "If only I had seen someone at the age of 14 or 15". Schools can play a huge role in preventing serious mental disorders. We picked that age group because we felt that is where the system was weakest but where it needed to be strongest. Great work is being done in early years education but youth mental health was neglected until 2006. An organisation defines itself by what it does not do as much as by what it does. Jigsaw offers a great deal in areas. For example, we visited a school the other day and the manager from the Jigsaw project in Dublin city centre spoke to the staff and invited them and the students to visit the Jigsaw premises in order that young people would know where it is and that is accessible but also that Jigsaw could work in the school to help build capacity around understanding and confidence to engage with people. There is more going on than just seeing people but they can be seen. They can self-refer and as one principal in Balbriggan said, the students know they can go to Jigsaw in the town and they do not have to tell the school staff or there can be a quiet word and they will go. We have striven to remove those barriers. There are many ways to do that with careful clinical governance and child protection measures. Best practice is observed.

The big question is where to begin. We have to begin with a consensus around what we would love to see happen in schools. We have to begin at the end, which is the vision. If we have a clear understanding of what we want to happen differently in schools, we will work to get there. Well-being is the wave that is breaking on the shores and it is the wave we have to work with at the moment. That is where energy, resources and money are being invested. It is the best thinking we have around mental health. It is funny that when we opened the Jigsaw centre in Galway, all the young people said we should not put well-being on the table. They said to us that if people are experiencing mental health problems and challenges, we need to let them know this is where they come and we have to change what mental health means. It is not mental illness but it is the more spiky end. Well-being is so attractive. Who does not want well-being? However, mental health is when everything gets heated and that is when people need help. We need not to be afraid of the phrase. It is not ideal but it is not mental illness. That is something else, which encompasses mental ill-health but it is not the same.

This has to be integrated within schools. Somebody has to be in charge. NEPS is the obvious body to pull together the threads. There are so many threads that it is like a spaghetti bowl. They are not even connected in any way; they are just all out there. There are many different developments in schools with people moving in with solutions. There are many magic bullets. It is noisy and crowded and more shared thinking is needed.

On the issue of the word "mental", we need a shared language and a way to talk about this. I am careful and I use generalised anxiety disorder. I am careful in so far as I can to use these words as adverbs, not nouns. People are anxious, depressed, frightened or angry but they do not have something. They can go on to have something but most of those we see are not there. We need a shared language that is not frightening for people. We all need that to be able to talk about these issues. Well-being is a lovely framework within which to have that but we need to recognise the kids we are most concerned about are at the dark end of the spectrum and we need to have language for them.

I am conscious that Mr. Martin must address a conference in Newry later and he may need to get away. Can I am ask him to contribute?

Mr. Shane Martin

I regret that immensely but I made that clear when I accepted the invitation.

Absolutely.

Mr. Shane Martin

There were a few questions but I would like to pick up on one of them to take advantage of my time. It relates to counselling in schools. Deputy Byrne referred to whether NEPS has the resources to respond in a clinical way to students in schools and we were asked whether we utilise outside agencies.

School-based counselling is the norm in many countries around the world. Some 32 of the 50 US states have school-based counselling within them, as do three of Canada's ten provinces, and one in six states in Australia. All experts know that prevention is key and that early intervention is critical.

In the context of our own system, it is important to acknowledge that guidance counsellors are ideally positioned to be the drivers of the new proposed well-being teams in every school, but only if they are allowed the hours necessary to deliver this service and to sufficiently utilise their skills and competencies.

We might talk about what we have and whether we need more, but it is a crying shame that what we did have has been taken away or reduced. The current Minister has conceded and compromised, but it is a matter or urgency that all previous hours rescinded for one-to-one work are restored in their entirety without further delay. That is an important point.

Guidance counsellors are not the same as agencies.

Mr. Shane Martin

I accept that but they are sometimes the referrer. They can refer to and link with external agencies. It is a pity that guidance counsellors' hours have been dramatically reduced. Perhaps there is a potential there to train guidance counsellors further so that they will have skills if those skills are needed, and if that requirement is determined to respond to those needs.

On a point of clarification, when Mr. Martin talks about the US states that have school-based counselling systems, is that the equivalent of guidance counselling?

Mr. Shane Martin

No, it is not. It is clinical.

That is what I was thinking, so it is a different thing.

Mr. Shane Martin

It is a different thing, but I am just saying that that is what is happening in other places. We might feel that guidance counsellors are not in a position to offer what we need, but they are critically important in the system. It makes no sense at all to pull them away from their work when mental well-being is such a vital area. It is getting a great deal of attention at the moment, particularly here.

Thankfully it will after the last budget, following interventions by certain parties.

Mr. Shane Martin

Go raibh maith agaibh. I appreciate the invitation to be here.

Not at all. It was a pleasure to have the witnesses here.

Mr. Shane Martin

I would love the committee members to read through our recommendations.

Yes, we will. Does Mr. King or Mr. Hussey wish to contribute?

Mr. Paul King

The theme that is emerging for me, and which is consistent across all our presentations, is the idea of anxiety within students themselves and also within teachers. The opportunity to attend to that comes from giving students and teachers the opportunity to trust their judgment and skill set. Schools are wonderful environments, but may be a bit like the Dáil which in some ways can be almost at one remove from society. That is because there is a world inside the school and a world outside it also. Mr. Hussey's work attempts to meet the needs of young people in terms of what their world is beyond school. I am involved in teacher education training and we must examine how we can get those two worlds connected. Senator Ruane touched on the gap between the life of the community and that of the school.

Deputy Catherine Martin referred to the issue of mindfulness. As a concept, mindfulness is interesting because there is a great degree of knowledge at some level in contemporary society around the possibilities for mindfulness. Because teachers and educators are so hungry to be able to attend to these issues, what we see emerging in schools is like: "This is going to be the next panacea. This is going to solve the issue."

We know that mental health issues are complex and therefore it is a cause of concern if educators, understandably, reach out to take hold of something that might support their students. However, we need to do it cautiously so that they are doing that in abidance with good practice and not adding to the damage that is there. That is the general point I wanted to make in response to Deputy Martin's query about mindfulness. It has lots of potential but we need to begin with teachers and educators first. We began the conversation with children whereas we need to begin it with children and educators. Both must be in parallel.

Mr. Peter Hussey

The first thing I wanted to say was to Senator Ruane about the film "I Used To Live Here". "Yes" is the answer to her question which was whether theatre can play a role in schools. It was an interesting question because our theatre company was engaged by that community she spoke about in Killinarden to make the first version of that film around suicide. We called it "Bruised". Based on that, with the young people participating, other people saw it and out of that came a new project which resulted in the film "I Used To Live Here". It is an interesting connection. Things do grow from one small item to another.

Deputy Martin asked about the aesthetic engagement in schools. It ties into what was said here about teachers feeling that they have to be psychiatrists, but are afraid of that. I would echo the idea that all that teachers need to be given an opportunity to do is teach, and not to be involved in anything other than teaching.

I am also involved in teacher training. In teacher training, further education, adult and community education, we are trying to encourage this idea of teaching. The problems in teaching have been identified for the past 20, 30, 40 or 50 years - that is, that standardisation of results and testing everyone at the same level produce a huge amount of stress.

The idea of managerialism coming in puts a lot more pressure on teachers because they have all of this to attend to, as well as preparing young people for a world of work which is the impact of the economy on them. All of these have nothing to do with teaching at a fundamental level. More and more teachers are getting fewer opportunities to teach. The stressful output of that is passed right on to students and pupils, while their stress is passed down along the line.

Any good teacher knows how to produce an aesthetic engagement learning process if they have the time and are allowed to do it. We should be trying to remove the other things out of their way in order to let that happen.

We do not have a formal interaction with schools, but we certainly do a lot of projects when we are asked to go into schools. Young people who have come up through the youth theatre have done quite a lot of them, so they teach and work with young people themselves. However, there is not a formalised referral system. We are a voluntary organisation so we do not have staff. We could probably benefit from having staff who could look at the administrative work and that might happen in future.

Aesthetic engagement and short-term modules are vital, but that is what good teaching is. Really good teaching is about inculcating that level of involvement and active mindfulness. The artistic programme can be delivered in schools but I would reiterate that it is not something one can ask just anybody to do who has a love of it. It needs careful implementation.

Are there any further questions from any of the members?

Mr. King referred to teacher training which is a hobby horse of mine. I think teachers are the key to this but I appreciate that they find it difficult, challenging and are afraid of it. The word "mental" instils fear and I accept what Dr. Bates said, that it is a generational thing. Our generation associates the word "mental" with the red brick building over the River Lee in Cork. That is why we have a fear of it, but there is a new generation who have no hang-up about mental health issues. Maybe we need to grow out of that, as opposed to trying to change it. Feel the fear and do it anyway, and then progress and proceed.

Is Mr. King confident that steps are being taken, and that sufficient progress is being made, on teacher training?

I see my children at home and the level of trust, love and regard and so on they have nowadays for their teachers. It is very different from our day, when we viewed teachers as "them and us". This is an enormous asset to the system. It is important to be able to enhance and equip teachers and enable them to upskill and feel the fear but deal with it anyway. Are there significant developments in the direction of teacher training?

Mr. Paul King

If I may address that, I thank Deputy Daly for his question. In preparation for today, I told the students with whom I work that I was to come before this committee and asked them what they would like me to say. To a person, they all said this is a very important issue and one they want to put to the fore. This echoes Deputy Daly's experience of his children's teachers.

The conversation about whether this is relevant has passed; the next stage is how we can go about it. This is where the floundering is taking place. There is a desire to do this but uncertainty over how to do it. This goes back to the issue of people trusting themselves and professionals, attending to their own mental health and being comfortable about speaking about and expressing their difficulties. Any initiative that can support this will be welcome but it must be done in a systematic way. I think we would all agree that having good, positive, well-meaning intentions is not sufficient and that they can be potentially damaging. This is a little like what Mr. Hussey said: having an interest in drama is very different from being able to teach it. Mindfulness with teachers is similar. There is a genuine well-being intentionality to work positively with and support children but it needs a skilled intervention. There is a very open, positive mindset towards this issue, and this is something we should take away from today. There has been a shift in culture to the effect that this is very topical, not just because it is topical in the news, but also because people feel it from the inside out. If we can begin to harness and work with this, we can respond to the issue of mental health very proactively. I hope that answers the Deputy's question.

On that note, on behalf of the committee, I thank the witnesses. The meeting was very insightful, very informative and very productive, and we have learned a lot. We appreciate their time, energy, enthusiasm and commitment to their field and the written statements they have given to us with their recommendations. I thank those in the Gallery who attended as well. We very much appreciate it.

As the joint committee has no other business, we will adjourn until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, 7 March. I wish to remind all members that if they have suggestions for speakers for our session on Brexit, they should submit them, together with justifications as to why they would be worthy witnesses, by close of business on Thursday. By Friday evening, we will have organised the session, including the date and who the speakers will be.

The joint committee adjourned at 6.05 p.m. until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, 7 March 2017.
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