Guess what? Mindfulness in secondary schools turns out to be crap

[noblegiraffe]

Extensive trials of mindfulness in secondary schools shows no measurable benefits in terms of a wide range of psychological measures including anxiety and depression.

The failure is being blamed on teens being too cynical.

digest.bps.org.uk/2017/09/26/perhaps-teens-are-too-cynical-to-benefit-from-mindfulness-say-authors-of-latest-negative-school-trial/

Because there are kids in school who arereallystruggling with their mental health and need access to expert services like CAMHS who are seeing funding cuts left right and centre and instead on focusing on resources to help them, money and time is being pissed away on the latest fad thatonce againhas been shown to be bobbins
This. Teachers are trained to TEACH.

I get annoyed on threads when anyone who has been to school suddenly feels qualified go presenf as some sort of education expert so I am equally concwrnes with the idea that a teacher aith 1 day training is expected to plug the gaps caused by slashing CAMHS.

With the best will in the world we are not qualified mental health professionals ans expecting us to do CAMHS stuff on top of an ever increasing remit kf teaching does students a massive disservice (and also undermines CAMHS professionals because 'hey anyone can do it if a motivational speaker talks to them for a day'l

My dd had MH problems. CAMHS did sfa twice. She did not need mindfulness at school she needed psychiatric clinical evaluation and treatment. Which she got because we paid for it. CAMHS offered group therapy for two hours at 10.30am for six consecutive weeks from 2nd October when she had started a new school and an A'Level subject that was brand new. As her problems were largely about academic achievement that would have been disastrous and it also breached confidentiality on two levels. Both 're the group nature and how she would explain things to classmates. New ones when she was settling in. When the issue was explained CAMHS suggested I ask the school to change their timetable!

As far as I am concerned schools are there to educate and to teach. The NHS is there to provide clinical care. I would like to see schools stand up against this. Resources need to be directed to the young people who need them. If they are being spent on mindfulness in schools then there will be even less to spend on young people who need proper clinical interventions.

As Christina Rossetti said much of young people's issues are because the emphasis has shifted from well educated to well qualified.

I didn't expect my child's teacher to sort out her MH issues, just as I didn't expect her GP to sort out her Maths.

I can crystallize this in money terms. I paid £35k for 6th form for dd. I was not going to jeopardise her 6th form experience by accepting an inadequate intervention. We ended up paying for specialist psychiatric support. Over an 18 month period probably well over £5k. DD was diagnosed with a Neuro developmental disability. CAMHS offered nothing. Once diagnosed DD was treated - it took 8 months privately even but there was also the ingrained anxiety and depression to deal with as well. Because she was both effectively treated, and wonderfully educated she achieved 3A* A'Levels which was pivotal for her overall recovery because it was the point when her self esteem healed. Education and healthcare can complement each other but neither can replace the other or do what the other is trained and paid to do.

I am at a loss to know what society needs to do to put this mess right but shifting responsibility from those who should be experts onto those who are expert in something is not the answer.

clearly mindfulness shouldn't be used as an alternative for CAMHS or proper mental health intervention
however i do think it is useful to offer teenager stress management techniques -
eg reach for the blue sky above the clouds, the importance of letting it go, to focus on creative work for the pure expression of it (not as "work to be graded") . My DD would never have thought of those suggestions without the mindfulness classes at school. The importance of "being still" etc... Of course she didn't actually have issues with stress maybe that's why it was useful - more pre-emptive than curative?

Totally agree.

noblegiraffe You'd make a great educational correspondent. Though, do papers still have those these days?

Agree with nocampinghere . It's no substitute for proper MH provision but can offer a few useful techniques for low-level stress, which we all suffer from at times.

I do also agree that mindfulness is the current "trendy" thing, and just as a few years ago there were hundreds of yoga classes offered in village halls etc, now it's mindfulness - and, of course, you have no idea to what extent the trainer has been trained themselves. It's one thing to take your chances in the village hall at 7.30 on a Tuesday, but quite another to subject whole rafts of kids to something when you don't know if the provider's credentials are good or has only been trained for two sessions.

I do know someone who has set up a mindfulness business and did get into a school, initially to train the staff. Talk about the kids being cynical - the staff were super cynical and only one member turned up to session no. 2.

DDs school is offering mindfulness to Y11 atm, the (lovely) teacher is really upset that no-one is turning up to her sessions. However, there are queues of stressed, anxiety-ridden DC with panic attacks trying to access the externally provided counselling sessions, who are terrified they are going to ruin the rest of their lives because they'll have "failed" by not getting whatever the current benchmark no of GCSE grades is.

I spend a lot of time telling DD to nod and smile at everyone who tells her that this is the most important year of her life, and is the most important subject she'll be sitting next summer. There's definitely a lot more pressure on DDs year than there was when her sisters did GCSEs.

I had a really long post but I realise it basically just repeated a lot of christinarossetti 's and noblegiraffe 's previous points.