Behavioural Needs or Mental Illness

Definition

Students can experience behaviour, social/emotional, or mental health problems that range from mild to serious. Most students with social/emotional difficulties can be supported in school through regular discipline, counselling, and school-based services. A smaller number of students require more intensive support.

Students who require behaviour supports are students whose behaviours reflect dysfunctional interactions between the student and one or more elements of the environment, including the classroom, school, family, peers and community. This is commonly referred to as behaviour disorders. Behaviour disorders vary in their severity and effect on learning, interpersonal relations and personal adjustment.

Symptoms and Assessment

Students who require Moderate Behaviour Support demonstrate one or more of the following:

behaviours such as aggression (of a physical, emotional or sexual nature) and/or hyperactivity;
behaviours related to social problems such as delinquency, substance abuse, child abuse or neglect.

Students with Mental Illness are students who have been diagnosed by a qualified mental health clinician as having a mental health disorder. Students with mental illness demonstrate one or more of the following:

negative or undesirable internalized psychological states such as anxiety, stress-related disorders, and depression;
behaviours related to disabling conditions, such as thought disorders or neurological or physiological conditions.

Strategies and Planning

For students moderate intensive behaviour intervention or serious mental illness, there must be one or more of the following additional services provided:

direct interventions in the classroom by a specialist teacher or supervised teachers' assistant to promote behavioural change or provide emotional support through implementing the plan outlined in the IEP;
placement in a program designed to promote behavioural change and implement the IEP; and/or
ongoing, individually implemented social skills training, and/or instruction in behavioural and learning strategies.

These services may be complemented/co-coordinated with:

in-depth therapy, counselling and/or support for the student or family in the community; or
pharmacological treatment as prescribed and monitored by a physician.

My Education, My Profession

by Marian Minar