Dubai schools encouraged to hire counsellors for pupils’ mental health

DUBAI // Schools in the emirate are being encouraged to employ full-time counsellors amid an increasing need to address pupils’ mental health and well-being. Without school counsellors, pupils might not get the help they need, making them vulnerable to anxiety and depression, said child psychiatrists.

This year, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority introduced a project to measure pupils’ well-being and track their improvement over a period of five years. The authority regulates private schools in Dubai.

It said it encouraged schools to hire counsellors even though schools were not legally required to have counsellors to address pupils’ non-academic problems.

The authority said its project would help policymakers and school leaders to gain a detailed understanding of students’ well-being.

Most mental health problems started at an early age, said Dr Khaled Kadry, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Maudsley Clinic Abu Dhabi.

“Seventy per cent of mental health problems occur before the age of 14, so it is safe to say that there are children in every school who have emotional behavioural difficulties, but may not have an outlet to speak about these difficulties,” he said. Having counsellors at schools who could speak to children could prevent the youngsters from having mental health problems, Dr Kadry said.

“There is a lot of evidence that building resilience and having the right discussion helps to prevent mental health issues from progressing,” he said.

“We see school counsellors as the first line of defence. Children can speak to them as easily as they would speak to any teacher and do not need parental consent to do so.”

Children might need to speak about issues such as falling out with friends or parental problems, in which a mental health specialist might not be needed, Dr Kadry said.

“However, if these problems are not addressed and the individual is represented with additional difficulties, that is where it becomes an issue,” he said.

Although some children may be able to cope with issues on their own, others may not.

Dr Kadry said children who were vulnerable to developing mental health issues were the ones who eventually fell into depression.

“It is often the accumulation of things that were not addressed at the time that leads to depression,” he said.

“Say you lost a parent, or they separated, then your siblings left for higher education. Then you broke up with someone or are being bullied at school and also have the stress of exams – these things could result in the child suffering from anxiety or depression,” said Dr Khadry.

Patricia Sidey, a counsellor at Gems International School in Dubai, said she saw between two and 10 children every day.

“Older kids tend to come to us in a crisis mode, panicking about what happened with their friends, at home or with their marks, and we help them get through their anxiety by talking to them about it,” she said.

The most common problems were regarding peers, their family and education, Ms Sidney said.

“Some kids just need to unload and we listen. Sometimes they want to make a change, in which case we advise and help them get through it.”

Read more: https://www.thenational.ae/uae/dubai-schools-encouraged-to-hire-counsellors-for-pupils-mental-health-1.62351