Brunswick Remedial Massage: students take the lead on mental health and wellbeing

It has been a tough year, and the year 12 cohort in particular is just trying to get through it. At the same time, many students have had to change their plans for next year, applying for university rather than spending a gap year travelling overseas.

“A lot of people are feeling tired and drained and they just want to see the end of all this; the end of school and the end of the pandemic,” Christian said.

Audrey said the hardest time was the seven weeks of remote learning in term one and two. Social media became a lifeline for keeping up with friends but also a massive distraction from study.

“You don’t realise how important socialising at school is, until it’s not there anymore, so I think a lot of people did struggle with mental health and concentration and just general morale,” she said.

Audrey and Christian say their fellow students have are aware of the support services out there and are also good at supporting each other. The student leadership team – which includes the student representatives from each year as well as the captains and prefects from year 12 – had made wellbeing a big focus and were also trying to get more art throughout public places in the school, such as murals.

School captains Christian Chorbadjian and Audrey Ormella with deputy principal and school welbeing leader Nash Davis at Dulwich Hill High School.Credit:Edwina Pickles

Many schools emphasise mental health and teach wellbeing skills in homeroom classes and run special events but increasingly, like at Dulwich Hill High, students are doing it for themselves as well. At schools as far afield as Orange High School and Cranbrook in Bellevue Hill, students have resurrected the mullet hairstyle for the Black Dog Institute’s “Mullets for Mental Health” initiative.

St Catherine’s prefects turbo-charged their Instagram accounts to help fellow students maintain connections and stay healthy. At Port Hacking High, the SRC arranged for the school to be lit up in yellow for RUOK day, while at Moss Vale High, students had “conversation walks” around the oval, using scripts to ask if their peers were OK. Windsor High School marked Wellbeing Week with “crazy hair day, mixed socks day, PJ day” and random acts of kindness arranged by students and staff.

All this positivity has a sombre purpose, with Sydney and regional NSW are dealing with a spate of youth suicides this year. There has been a cluster of nine suicides among year 11 and 12 students in north shore public and private schools since January, while Kiama on the south coast has been rocked by five suicides in the past five weeks, some of them teens.

Last week, students at a number of Sydney schools were hauled into the principal’s office and some were even suspended for sharing a graphic suicide video.

The video, originally live-streamed on Facebook, was posted on TikTok with seemingly innocent images of puppies and kittens to lure children.

The eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant warned parents to monitor social media use or keep children offline for a few days but not to draw children’s attention to the video if they had not already heard about it.

Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; Lifeline 13 11 14; Beyondblue 1300 22 4636