One fifth of young people have mental problems, says expert
A Bray Partnership seminar in the Ramada last Wednesday explored some of the ways in which educators can meet the needs of young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.
The seminar brought together a large audience of educators from schools and community groups in the town, who came along to hear Professor Paul Cooper, an expert on the subject from the University of Leicester, give a talk on this important topic.
Professor Cooper said that around 20 per cent of young people have general mental health problems and that there is a clear link between social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and educational failure.
He said that young people with these problems crave love and understanding but often show this through behaviour that rejects the person who is trying to help them.
With difficult behaviour having its origins in emotional difficulty, he called on educators to avoid the desire to blame and instead to work harder at forging relationships.
He also talked about how the school environment itself can contribute to children developing social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, and the changes that schools can make to address this.
For example, research clearly shows that all children in a classroom setting regularly come to a point throughout the day usually every 40 minutes - when they have exhausted their ability to concentrate, after which point disruptive behaviour becomes much more likely.
He said in his experience universally children describe this breaking point as boredom. In the USA, this state is know as recess deficit' and the solution is to give children regular recess breaks' with some physical activity, even if only for five or ten minutes.
The seminar was part of Bray Partnership's ongoing education work, which aims to address educational inequality by strengthening dialogue between local youth organisations, formal education providers, social partners and decision-makers.
Bray Partnership is one of 38 local development companies in Ireland. Its mission is to tackle social exclusion and disadvantage in the Bray area, using a partnership approach.
