Schools

I wasn’t always a therapist… my first career was in teaching. My experience is that this duality helps me view school-based therapy through a mental health lens but also that of educationalists and school leaders . It helps close that potential gap that can form between the realms of academic pressures vs wellbeing, and the importance of the emotional availability to learn. Several schools and trusts have bought in the services of @mstherapeutic_ to consult on ways that these pivotal elements of school life can optimally coexist in harmony. Emotionally sound young people make great learners, secure attachment can help us be curious and explorative. Equally, stresses and adversity, anxiety or fluctuations in mood can be vastly preoccupying and melt away the capacity to cope with the rigidity and high demands of a mainstream school environment. The pursuit of flexibility is what took me into the sphere of alternative provision, some 13 years ago. Since then, I have worked in, co-founded and run various non-mainstream

education models meeting the needs of young people who might be outliers when it comes to one-size-fits-all schooling. Recent years brought me back full circle, to a large, comprehensive, conventional settings- where those most struggling can be obscured by the sheer volume of peers and the prevailing culture of conformism. It’s my belief that emotional wellbeing for students is the plinth on which schools should rest. It’s only with the bandwidth to think, and the cognitive capacity to be present, that young people can truly absorb the learning material presented to them, regardless of how inventively or imaginatively it’s offered. Keep an eye out for the MSTherapeutic 'Expanding, enriching and embedding therapeutic services in schools' flagship training!