Thursday, 18 May 2023

School mental health programs

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:49): (236) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Education, and it is in relation to mental health support in schools. Last week I went to Bentleigh Secondary College. It is one of the excellent local schools in Southern Metropolitan Region. I spoke with the principal and a number of the senior staff there, but I also spoke with two student leaders, Sophia and Michael, who gave me an insight into some of the issues that they are dealing with in that school. One of the things that they were very concerned about was mental health programs and support for mental health first aid. They gave me this wonderful book, TeenMental Health First Aid Australia for Senior Secondary Students. In this book there are some great points around various issues that teens can experience – anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, eating disorders and a whole range of other things – and then it looks at how to deal with those both from a peer-to-peer point of view and also how teachers and others can support students.

What they spoke about also was the impact of lockdowns. We know that they had a detrimental impact on many, many people and in particular so many children. Here in Victoria we were the longest locked-down city in the world. I think we are seeing the impacts of those school lockdowns with falling literacy rates and these mental health issues within schools, and that is what these two very excellent student leaders were talking to me about. During the lockdowns, as you are aware, President, I was on the pandemic committee, and we had Shadow Pandemic Victoria, which was a group of women, mothers and parents who grew literally organically through social media, raising the concerns that they were seeing with their children – the mental health impacts that the kids were experiencing during the lockdowns. It really was a most dreadful time, and it is one of the reasons why I have called continuously for a royal commission – because of the impacts that have affected so many people. Nevertheless, through that committee, they told us of the mental health issues.

These young leaders at Bentleigh Secondary College are reiterating those concerns some years later. So the action I am seeking is for the minister to advocate for sufficient funding in next week’s budget so that these programs can continue in schools so that children can have the support that they require, because this is an issue, sadly, that is not going away. It is an issue that is growing, and anything we can do to support these young people at a very vulnerable time we need to do.