Webinar: Young people's behaviour and mental health - two sides of the same coin?

We held our very first webinar on 25th of February, centred around the topic of whether young people’s mental health and behaviour are two sides of the same coin. The webinar was chaired by The Honourable Norman Lamb MP, who was joined by a panel of young people from youth-led organisation Pupil Power, our Founder and Co-headteacher Lucy Stephens, Dr Alexandra Matovic Manca (a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist), Lord Dennis Stevenson (a long-time mental health advocate and activist) and The New School parent Keeta Adams.

We organised this webinar knowing that 2020 had been a challenging but formative year for the UK education system. The pandemic led to an alarming widening of educational inequality and exposed challenges with the UK’s exam-based system. However, there have also been positives. Awareness of the importance of young people’s mental health has grown greatly amongst politicians, educators, and the general public, especially the vital role of schools.

This greater understanding has not come too soon. Young people’s mental well-being is a serious and growing concern in UK schools with one in six children aged 5-16 years now identified as having a probable mental disorder. However, conversations still typically focus more on access to mental health treatment rather than how to mitigate against these conditions in the first place. 

Rarely do we connect the issue of young people’s behaviour and poor mental health. Instead, we read about ‘zero tolerance’, punitive sanctions or behaviour controls to correct young people’s ‘bad’ behaviour.

The New School takes a different approach to behaviour and mental health, seeing them as the flip side of the same coin. We believe that behaviour is communication. So we approach difficult behaviour by considering what the child is trying to communicate - what needs may be unmet here? We take a relational approach to build deep and trusting relationships between young people and staff. And instead of a “behaviour policy” we have a community accountability policy, focused on restorative justice, and supported by empowered young people and staff who all hold one another to account.

You can watch the full webinar below:

Thank you to all of our fantastic guests for joining us and partaking in this incredible conversation - we are very grateful to you all.

If you would like to find out more about The New School’s principles, you can do so here.