The Forest School in Knaresborough is for children aged 13 to 16 with a range of special educational needs.
They have a new framework for monitoring and assessing the children, that will be rolled out in the New Year.
We spoke to them on World Mental Health Day, 10 October 2019.
Lisa Kendall has been with the school for 7-years and is the mental heath lead.
Lisa said:
There is still a lot of stigma around talking about mental health, people are much more likely to talk about other problems, for fear being judged on mental health problems.
It is good to see the need-to talk being raised and celebrities and role models talking more openly. That does have an impact on young people.
At the school we are looking to implement a new framework for us to work around, Fagus. It integrates into much of what we do now and allows better assessment of needs.
Fagus is a framework for emotional and social development
The school knows the importance of creating an environment for learning. The students have more complex needs and many of them are non-verbal.
Lisa said:
The children need to be in the right place to access learning, and putting them in a good place with mental health is part of that.
We get to know the children really well, you can read them and spot if there are problems.
We also have a weekly phycologist that visits the school and we are looking to have teaching assistants work on mental health, that is something they used to do and we are returning to it.
Forest School, Knaresborough
