The theme for R U OK? Day 2023, is I’m here to hear – and while we automatically consider adult mental health on this day, students of all ages need to hear this message too.
Big Talks for Little People
Flinders University researcher Professor Phillip Slee and his colleagues have developed the Big Talks for Little People program. It’s a mental health classroom kit for primary school educators and it’s helping South Australian school students better understand their mental health.
Professor Slee told The Brsar, “You are never too young to talk about mental health and supporting young people to find a ‘voice’ is critical to support their mental health and well-being.”
The program is specifically designed for students who have experienced trauma or challenges within their own mental health and well-being, including school bullying. Following successful implementation in South Australian primary schools, Big Talks for Little People is now being nationally funded.
Teachers will be able to use a digital platform to run the six-lesson module in their classrooms, covering six set topics with digital animations and suggested activities for 35 to 40 minutes each. Themes will include emotions, resilience, conflict management, and exclusion, in lesson plans designed to reflect students’ daily lives.
“The Big Talks for Little People program has been developed with students and teachers for students and teachers to develop confidence and to recognise and talk about our feelings with someone we trust,” Professor Slee told The Bursar.
Teachers will incorporate animations into their lessons and use prompting questions such as, “Have you witnessed a similar situation? Have you ever experienced something like this? If you saw another child facing a similar situation, how would you respond?” to engage their students.
Self-evaluation is a powerful tool
Self-evaluation will be key to the monitoring process, as students will be asked to assess their skills before, soon after, and an extended period after the program, to see how those skills have been retained or evolved.
The focus will be on early intervention and prevention for children in each class and content will be adapted in response to new, potentially triggering, events, such as outbreaks, pandemics or bushfires.
The program has been so successful in South Australia that the Ministry of Education in Turkey has allocated funds to support a project that will address the trauma experienced by children, families, and communities devastated by the 2023 earthquakes in Turkey.
The program is being translated into Turkish and when that component of the project is finished, Professor Slee and his colleagues will have developed a comprehensive, trauma-informed, and culturally sensitive school model. This will improve psychosocial interventions following earthquakes and will also make a substantial contribution to academic literature on both national and international levels.
“Anxiety in this post-pandemic world is a very unfortunate but significant aspect of young people’s lives. Anxiety about climate change, about the ever-present nature of conflict on the world stage, about the intrusiveness of social media,” says Professor Slee. “Findings from evaluations of Big Talks Little People demonstrate its effectiveness in reducing anxiety by improving resilience and coping.”
