Avalanche of Anxiety in schools

[crochetmonkey74]

I've been a teacher for 25 years. Until recently I had experienced 2 students in 20 years that expressed suicidal thoughts or intention. I am now experiencing at least 2 a week (often more).
I am struggling with the mental and emotional load of it - anyone else noticed the same in their place?

I'm in my 13th year and I think there are definitely more mental health issues now than when I first started.

I work in a very deprived area and I wonder how much is due to that - cost of living, housing issues, families really struggling to even have the basics😔

I think in many ways, social media doesn't help either. So many influencers who paint a picture of their lives being 'perfect'.

It's sad- I think a lot of kids grow up too quickly nowadays.

For yourself- have you got support in school from colleagues? You shouldn't have to deal with it alone.

There is a mental health crisis going on. I am a teacher and I have a dd with mental health issues. The situation is absolutely dire, there is little to no help out there, a lot of teachers (MY colleagues!) don’t take mental health issues seriously and anyway, we are not trained to deal with this at all and there is no support for teachers, who suffer from their own issues on top of this, either… I could go on. It does feel like the world is going to hell in a handcart.

I think things have got worse. However I also think teens are more open and we have got better at spotting things. I was at secondary school in the 00s, and I did have friends who were self harming in a relatively serious way, and also friends with eating disorders - one of these was hospitalised and it was only noticed when he collapsed (to be clear we knew about it but no adults were aware).

I do think the numbers have increased but I also think there's greater awareness and openess, which can only be a good thing.

I definitely don't think social media helps, and it's also very difficult to get support via camhs until the student has actually acted on their ideation etc. I do think there should be more early help for teens.

I agree with the toll it takes on your mental health - teachers definitely need more support with this and it is really stressful. We have had a suicide attempt in school this term (serious attempt that was clearly researched in advance) and another school in our area did have a student unfortunately die from suicide in their toilets relatively recently. It's becoming a contributing factor to stricter toilet rules in lesson time but you can't really tell parents that's why.