The mental health of students has always been the priority of our school. In order to enhance the understanding of mental health among teachers and students, strengthen the effectiveness of psychological education, and in response to the SIP Primary and Secondary School Mental Health Education Month activity, our school holds the first mental health work exhibition "2020, Growth of Mind" from November 16th in the Lobby.
The exhibition has received strong support from school leaders at all levels, as well as from the leaders and teachers of Primary School, Middle School and High School. The exhibition presents the mental health work of our school so far this semester, including students’ mental health education, students’ psychological counseling, teachers’ empowerment and parents support.
In the part of mental health education, the lovely Emotional Books and Choice Spinners are hung on the display boards, presenting the Grade One First Unit of Inquiry “Who Are We – Emotions”. Children's life and friends or family conflicts and solutions, are wrote in the emotional books issued by the “OCAC Press”, quite lively and interesting! The Choice Spinners make a variety of ways to resolve conflicts which help the students to make better choices.
Meanwhile, the Grade 6 students, through comics, depict their thoughts and feelings about life in middle school, relationships with parents and friends, and even their ideas about future. The Grade 9 students design a mental health flyer to communicate the importance of time management and stress management to the general public.
Whether it's an emotional book, a choice spinner, a psychological comic, or a mental health flyer, these artistic creations are one of the best ways to heal the mind.
In addition to artistic creation, the Middle School and the High School hold a series of mental health lectures on the different needs of each grade, including "Middle School Freshmen Adaptation" in Grade 6; "Beautiful Youth" in Grade 7; "Anti-bullying" in Grade 8; "Island of Interests" in Grade 9; "Promoting Peer Understanding" and "Self-identity of adolescents" in Grade 10.
On the display board of the psychological counseling work, the small group counseling in the Primary School and the support group in the Middle School all try to introduce the benefits of group counseling. The acceptance, belonging, and relaxed atmosphere in the group help students practice positive social skills and better emotional and behavioral control.
The development of teacher workshops is also part of the works of the psychological counselors. Teachers always have heavy teaching load. In addition, they have to face students of different ages and needs. The front-line teachers must need some stress management skills and knowledge of children development. The "Share with Teachers about IB Social Emotional Learning Workshop" and "How HRTs Take Care of Themselves" in the Primary School, the "HRTs Stress Management Workshop" in the Middle School, and the "Teens Stress and Mental Health Teacher Workshop" in the High School are all helpful to teachers to learn and empower themselves in mental health management.
At the same time, the counselors must work closely with the parents, because there is a healthy positive family, will have happy and active children. In addition to one-on-one meetings with parents, the parent workshops will be held in line with the requirements of epidemic prevention. For example, on November 24th the Primary School will run a "Sexual Health Education Parent Workshop" to introduce the biological and emotional changes during puberty and how to talk to them about sex to help them better protect themselves. A "Family Education Workshop" will also be held in December to introduce positive parenting strategies.
The panel also introduces the OCAC’s four psychological counselors, Lien Jiashan and Hao Qingyang from Primary School, He Jing from Middle School and Zhao Meili from High School, as well as their lovely and relaxing studios. Children who are not yet mature in physical and mental development are unable to "talk about" their difficulties in a conversational manner, as adults do. Therefore, the various toys and sand trays in the studios are the best tools for the counselors to communicate with their children, allowing them to "play" with inner stress and pain in the way they do best, and to practice better self-control through the playful and therapeutical games.
The first mental health exhibition is to give teachers, students and parents a preliminary understanding of the daily psychological work. Mental health work is sustainable. The four counselors will continue to work hard in areas of students’ work, teachers’ work and parental work. Through close cooperation between schools, students, teachers and families, we can help students grow up better physically and mentally to meet their future success!
