Teacher And Schoolchildren Affected By Parental Mental Disorders. Teachers Mental Health Promotion Abilities and Possibilities In Everyday Schoollife.
Author(s):
Dirk Bruland (presenting / submitting) Janine Broeder Orkan Okan Paulo Pinheiro Bauer Ullrich
Conference:
ECER 2017
Network:
08. Research on Health Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

08 SES 12 B JS, Ill-being and Well-being: Digital pedagogies and teacher coping

Joint Paper Session NW 08 and NW 18

Time:
2017-08-25
09:00-10:30
Room:
K3.23
Chair:
Rachel Sandford

Contribution

Estimations suggest that over three million children, about one quarter of all schoolchildren, experience at least one parent with mental disorder in Germany every year (Mattejat, 2008). It is also assumed that there is a child in every second school class with a parent in outpatient care and in every third one with a parent in psychiatric inpatient care (Lenz & Brockmann, 2016). Children living with a parent having a mental disorder are at considerably higher risk of developing serious mental health problems themselves (Beardslee, Versage, & Gladstone, 1998; England & Sim, 2009). For example according to a forecast by the World Health Organization (WHO), depression in western countries will be the most common illness by the year 2030 (WHO, 2011). It is presumed that children of depressed parents have up to fourfold higher risk of developing depressive disorders than children in general population (Weissman et al., 2016). The psychosocial burdens depend on children’s experiences of a parental disorder e.g. the intensity of disorder phenomena. The different burden patterns and coping attempts often become manifest in children's school lives. While some children show a drop in academic achievements and withdraw from school activities, others may become aggressive or display other behavioural problems (Beardslee, Mattejat, & Lisofsky, 2009). This may have impact on school life and academic achievement, which could finally lead to a problematic educational biography and long term problems (Powell, 2009). However, if adequate individual, familial and community resources are available to accomplish developmental tasks, engage in relationships, and understand them and their family’s situation, children could cope well (Beardslee, 2002).

The result of a conducted scoping review (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005) in 2015 showed that the international scientific discussion provides only little information about teachers’ abilities of identifying and supporting schoolchildren affected by parental mental disorders (SAPMD).Aim of the review was also to get an overview about teachers’ role and responsibilities regarding affected children. In contrast to the above mentioned high importance of parental mental disorders only three studies could be found (Bibou-Nakou 2004, Reupert & Maybery 2007, Brockmann 2014) focusing on teachers and SAPMD. In conclusion, the results of these studies demonstrate that school has a major role for educational needs and social experience of children. It is highlighted that SAPMD experience more problems than children in general population and school (success) is mentioned as a further possible risk for affected children, e.g. school problems are additional to families’ problems. This means schools can have an important protective function, but can also create risk potentials. The teachers’ role in these studies is to identify children’s problems responds to family’s mental health issues and having a gatekeeper role to specialist services. However the founded studies show that identifying affected children is not easy for teachers and supporting SAPMD is up to the individual. When teachers identify SAPMD, they are usually concerned by the situation of the child and the consequences for that child and highly loaded by the child's school situation. So arguably teachers are stressed in this situation and SAPMD do not get adequate support.

Due to the little knowledge as a result of the scoping review semi-structured interviews with teachers were conducted. In order to gain more insight in school practise the aim was to explore how teachers identify and support affected schoolchildren against educational inequality and as an essential task of children’s mental health promotion. Another objective was to analyse teachers’ abilities/possibilities in everyday school life. This contribution shows results of the conducted interviews. These results are the basis for considerations of how teachers and affected children can be supported in everyday school life.

Method

Semi-structured interviews with 15 teachers were performed individually and qualitatively analysed by content analysis (Schreier, 2012). Three focus groups (n=11; 2 groups with teachers from primary schools, 1 with high school teachers) were also conducted. These focus groups were performed to enrich the individual interviews with a method which allows further discussions about this topic between teachers. In addition, for a better insight into school structures, individual interviews were also conducted with two school social workers (1 primary school, 1 other secondary school) and one special pedagogue (other secondary school). The issues of the interview guideline were developed referring to the founded studies of the scoping review and in accordance with the 'Mental Health Literacy'-understanding provided by Jorm and colleagues (1997). The term mental health literacy has been defined as: • “the ability to recognize specific disorders (used in guideline: identifying SAPMD); • knowing how to seek mental health information; • knowledge of risk factors and causes, of self-treatments (used in guideline: supporting SAPMD), and of professional help available (gatekeeper role); • and attitudes that promote recognition and appropriate help seeking” (Jorm et al., 1997). By formulating guideline questions, we had to ensure, that we get access to the teachers view of working with schoolchildren’s family backgrounds in consideration of the very sensitive topic of mental health problems. Due to this the guideline starts with general question of how they found out about schoolchildren’s family environment and lead to the special topic SAPMD. A check of the interview guideline was performed within three interviews with teachers (2 elementary schools, 1 high school) and was revised to the feedback. Methodical approach were adapted for focus groups. It was intended to interview 24 teachers from the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The recruitment of teachers was done in three ways: • in cooperation with the school program „Bildung und Gesundheit” (operating in NRW), • “snow ball system” – interviewed teachers agreed to provide access to other teachers, • and social media like Facebook. Because of the latest school developments in Germany and especially in NRW - the inclusion process and the transformation process of two secondary schools types (Haupt- und Realschule to comprehensive schools) - it was assumed that this will have influence of recruiting teachers. At least 8 teachers from primary schools and 7 from secondary schools were interviewed, in addition with the above mentioned focus groups and other school professionals.

Expected Outcomes

Supporting practice of SAPMD in schools are currently insufficient, but show good opportunities for mental health promotion. Teachers mentioned that reacting to schoolchildren without any recognition of the family circumstances could miss the true problem of the child and intensify education problems as well as mental health/behaviour problems. There is a paradox in teachers’ training; families’ issues have high importance for teaching children, but there is in general a crucial training lack concerning family issues. Especially for SAPMD teachers expresses not to feel sufficiently trained in dealing with those situations. Teachers mentioned that they have the whole responsibility for children’s social and educational needs, but there are great uncertainties to support affected schoolchildren. Supporting strategies are based on individual teaching and personal experience. Poor collaboration with supporters outside school is reported. Institutional means and resources were identified as being insufficient for supporting teachers adequately. Teacher report to be high stressed supporting SAPMD especially in class situations. However, the results show good opportunities for intervention. As a conclusion follows to sum up that targeting professionals' abilities for dealing with this high-risk-group and increasing coordination in school can lead to a discharge for teacher themselves and increases on this way school mental health promotion for affected children. Children spend a lot of time in schools and therefore they are good reachable for mental health promotion with less stigma and school tasks offered a good access to students families (Bibou-Nakou, 2004). Teachers’ professional role was discussed in interviews, but there was no clarified responsibility for family problems which influence schoolchildren’s behaviour. As further research is necessary, an online-questionnaire (n=2,500) based on these results is carried out this year for analysing intervention opportunities in everyday school life. These results are the basis for developing a demand-orientated training programme for teachers.

References

Arksey H, O'Malley L: Scoping studies: Towards a Methodological Framework. Int J Soc Res Methodol. 2005, 8: 19-32. Beardslee WR, Versage EM, Gladstone TRG. (1998). Children of affectively ill parents: a review of the Past 10 years. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 37(11):1134–1141. Beardslee, W.R., Mattejat, F., & Lisofsky, B. (2009). Hoffnung, Sinn und Kontinuität. Ein Programm für Familien depressiv erkrankter Eltern. Bonn: Dgvt-BALANCE. Bibou-Nakou, I. (2004). Helping Teachers to Help Children Living with a Mentally Ill Parent. Teachers’ Perceptions on Identification and Policy Issues. School Psychology International, 25(1), 42–58. Brockmann, E. (2014). Kinder psychisch erkrankter Eltern in der Schule Bedingungen und Konsequenzen der Enttabuisierung der elterlichen psychischen Erkrankung im schulischen Kontext auf die Beziehung zwischen Eltern, Schülern und Lehrern – eine qualitative Studie. Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek. Retrieved from http://d-nb.info/1069092843/34. Accessed 12 August 2015. England MJ, Sim LJ. (2009). Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children: Opportunities to Improve Identification, Treatment, and Prevention. Washington, DC. National Academies Press. Jorm, A.F., Korten, A.E., Jacomb, P.A., Christensen, H., Rodgers, B., & Pollitt, P. (1997). ‘Mental health literacy’: a survey of the public's ability to recognise mental disorders and their beliefs about the effectiveness of treatment. Medical Journal of Australia, 166(4), 182-186. Lenz A., Brockmann E. (2016). Schüler mit psychisch kranken Eltern. Auswirkungen und Unterstützungsmöglichkeiten im schulischen Kontext. Goettingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Mattejat F. (2008). Kinder mit psychisch kranken Eltern. Was wir wissen und was zu tun ist. In: Mattejat F, Lisofsky B. (eds.). Nicht von schlechten Eltern. Kinder psychisch Kranker. Bonn: BALANCE buch + medien. Powell JJW. (2009). Von schulischer Exklusion zur Inklusion? Eine neoinstitutionalistische Analyse sonderpädagogischer Fördersysteme in Deutschland und den USA. In: Koch S, Schemann M. (Hrsg.): Neo-Institutionalismus in der Erziehungswissenschaft. Grundlegende Texte und empirische Studien. Wiesbaden. VS. 213-232. Reupert, A., Maybery, D. (2007). Strategies and Issues in Supporting Children Whose Parents Have a Mental Illness within the School System. School Psychology International, 28(2), 195-205. Weissman, M. M., Wickramaratne, P., Gameroff, M. J., Warner, V., Pilowsky, D., Kohad, R. G., Verdeli, H., Skipper, J., & Talati, A. (2016). Offspring of Depressed Parents: 30 Years Later. American Journal of Psychiatry, 173(10), 1024-1032. World Health Organization (2011). Global burden of mental disorders and the need for a comprehensive, coordinated response from health and social sectors at the country level. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB130/B130_9-en.pdf. Accessed 17 May 2016.

Author Information

Dirk Bruland (presenting / submitting)
Bielefeld University
Centre for Prevention and Intervention in Child and Adulthood
Bielefeld
Janine Broeder
Bielefeld University, Germany
Orkan Okan
Bielefeld University
Department of Socialisation, Centre for Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and Adolescence (CPI)
Bielefeld
Paulo Pinheiro
Bielefeld University, Germany
Bauer Ullrich
Bielefeld University, Germany

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