The Rainy River District School Board (RRDB) is maintaining a similar ethos for its approach to mental health as in previous years, according to the board’s mental health leader.
Tracey Idle, the Mental Health Lead for the RRDSB, discussed the board’s mental health strategy as it prepared to enter the new year. Idle noted that having students learn about their mental health in the classroom has been proven to provide them a host of benefits.
“The whole reason that School Mental Health Ontario exists is that research has shown that learning about mental health at school and helping to support mental health leads students on a better trajectory for success as they move into adulthood,” Idle said.
“Maintaining good mental health is the basis of general good health.”
Idle identified four main areas as ways to fortify student mental health. The first of which is creating mentally healthy environments, but that environment isn’t limited to a classroom.
“That’s really about ensuring that school staff have role-specific tools and resources to support student mental health and well-being,” said Idle.
“We also want to strengthen relationships with families by providing opportunities to help them build their own mental health literacy. Ontario students have told us that they want their parents and caregivers to learn about mental health so that they can have these discussions at home.”
The second area of focus is teaching and learning about mental health, which Idle said is aimed at helping local students begin to develop a sense of agency over their own mental health.
“We’re working to enhance the learning expectations for mental health and well-being that are already within the Ontario curriculum,” Idle said.
“We’re exploring culturally responsive ways of understanding mental health, and identity-affirming ways of coping. We hope students gain a sense of agency over their own well-being. Over the past two years, there’s been a consistent increase in the number of students identifying that they know where to get help, and a willingness to seek the help that they need at school.”
The third area includes student engagement and allyship.
“We want to involve our youth in helping to create resilient school communities and leverage the powerful impact of peer-to-peer interactions to support mental health promotion. We’ve had a growing number of Mental Health Champions in our schools. We talk about different ideas that they could do to help support mental health at their school,” said Idle.
“We are one of eight Ontario school boards that are participating in a field test this year, and this is in support of 2SLGBTQIP+ students.”
Finally, the last area of focus is about community partnerships and services.
“We recognize the importance of coordinating our efforts with our community partners. It’s the role of the school to provide prevention and early intervention services for mild to moderate mental health needs. We also want to work with our community partners to build a strong pathway to care when more intensive services are required,” Idle said.
“We’ve also seen a very good increase in the past couple of years in our secondary students who report their mental health as good, very good or excellent. That’s increased quite substantially.”
With over 30 years of experience in child and youth mental health, Idle is uniquely poised to identify how children and youth become more confident and self-assured with adequate mental health supports.
“When you see the changes that the things that we’re doing can make for a student and see them become more engaged in school, to see their hope to make plans for the future, that’s what keeps me going,” Idle said.
“That sets them up with a good life.”
