1.- What’s your name and what is your role in this school?
My name is Francisco and I’m the counselor of ESO at Escola Goar.
2.- Do you think that enough importance is given to students’ mental health in high school?
The issue of mental health is an issue that for about two years now, perhaps since the pandemic, has become a topic that has spread a lot at a social level and has obviously been incorporated into schools. Are there enough resources being used? Well, currently not, they don’t have all the resources they should have, but there is sometimes strict collaboration between the school and health institutions, they are increasingly involved in this issue.
3.- What kind of support do you think schools should offer to promote better mental health among students?
Support? Well, mental health issues and mental disorders are a clinical matter. It’s an aspect that pertains to mental health, the clinical field, and schools…Of course, there aren’t any specialists in this area. I believe it should be more of a preventive resource.This is already done to some extent—identifying cases of students who experience some kind of emotional distress or conflicts—and then making referrals from there.
4.- How do academic workload and expectations affect students’ mental well-being in school?
Well, it’s one of the main sources of distress among students, isn’t it? The workload… learning, assignments, homework, the issue of passing or failing, of advancing through grades. But… all that is not the main cause of an emotional disorder. Behind what I just described, there’s usually a profile, a personality affected by other… other components or factors that aren’t so directly related to passing a grade or specific subjects.
5.- How could mental health influence relationships between students?
An emotional affectation in a student or an individual at a general level affects not only their classmates, but also their environment at a family level, including their more personal tasks such as making decisions, going out with friends, relating,…Everything is linked. When a person is emotionally affected, their entire environment is also affected.
6.- What changes would you like to see in your institute to improve the mental well-being of students and teachers?
Well, it is already somewhat the role of the school, a role of prevention or detection of cases. Improve? Well, maybe more training, specialists in this sense, training for teachers, that is, that they have some kind of knowledge of the anxieties that can affect an adolescent at this age. And from here on, prevention, I would leave the intervention to the more clinical part.
