Page 29 - Essential Advice for the Teaching Profession - Vol. 8

Supporting Students’ Mental Health
On November 8, 2018, the Council of the Ontario College of Teachers approved this profes- sional advisory. It is intended to help Ontario Certified Teachers (OCTs) to support students with mental health concerns and understand how to assist in their support. This advisory applies to all OCTs, including, but not limited to, teachers, consultants, principals, vice- principals, supervisory officers, directors of education and those working in non-school board positions.
Ontario Certified Teachers (OCTs) support students’ mental health. The responsibility exists in the profession’s ethics and lives in its practices. It resides in the intentions of individual practitioners and in the collect- ive duties of a multi-disciplinary team of professionals. It entails knowing how
to recognize and address signs of mental illness, understanding where to turn for help, and working to avoid stigmatization while promoting wellness. The stigmas, ideas, preconceived notions, and under- standing of mental health differs across families and cultures.
For the purposes of this advisory, the College has adopted the Public Health Agency of Canada’s definition of positive mental health as “the capacity of each and all of us to feel, think, and act in ways that enhance our ability to enjoy life and deal with the challenges we face.” Mental
health encapsulates one’s ability to manage thoughts, feelings and behaviour, making it possible to set and achieve goals, create and keep relationships, adapt to and cope with stress and sadness, and feel happiness.
Mental illness is more than feeling stressed or unwell. It is “a disturbance of brain func- tion characterized by difficulties in think- ing, mood, behaviour, perception, physical functioning and/or signaling mechanisms (or some combination thereof) [that] helps us decide what to do day by day. [It is] diagnosed using internationally recognized criteria that lead to significant impairments in day-to-day living (work, home, social)”1.
This advisory aims to help OCTs enhance their professional knowledge and practice with respect to understanding how to sup- port students’ mental health.
1 teenmentalhealth.org/live
Learn to recognize, understand and support students’ mental health.
Read the Professional Advisory — Supporting Students’ Mental Health in its entirety by visiting oct-oeeo.ca/student_mental_health.
ONTARIO COLLEGE OF TEACHERS
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