Self-Harm and Attempted Suicide Response

Student recovery and healing

Recovery and returning to school

The recovery phase includes key activities that focus on restoring safety and improving the mental health and wellbeing of students, staff and families.

Key activities include:

• planning
• identifying a support person
• considering reasonable adjustments
• ongoing monitoring and support
• supporting students completing VCE including the VCE Vocational Major (VM).

Responsibility for undertaking these activities sits with the school leadership team or school wellbeing staff, in collaboration with teaching staff. Safety planning must be undertaken by an appropriately qualified staff member. For more information, refer to Creating a Safety Plan – Be You.

Educators will be involved in the recovery and return to school phase. They should be aware of information that will enable them to support students and keep them safe (for example, who the student’s support person is, reasonable adjustments).

Recovery from self-harm is non-linear and relapse is common so total cessation may be an unrealistic measure of recovery. A student should continue to be supported with regular follow ups, and communication with family and their medical team, if appropriate.

Key activities

Recovery and return to school planning

Recovery and any return to school planning should be done in consultation with the student, their parents and carers and any mental health professionals involved in the student’s care (this may be professionals at the school or externally). This may occur through a Student Support Group using the Team around the learner framework.

Planning should consider any ongoing risks of self-harm or emotional distress, including any contributing factors in the school environment. Planning should also identify strengths and protective factors.

Considerations when planning may include:

• any ongoing risks of self-harm or emotional distress, including any challenges in the school environment
• identification of a support person (see below)
• any reasonable adjustments required (see below)
• establishment of student support group meetings.

It may be appropriate to develop a safety plan or behaviour support plan to support the student's recovery and safety. A safety plan would be developed by appropriately trained and skilled school staff (such as an allied health professional with mental health specialisation), SSS or an external mental health professional.

Planning can be useful to document strategies and outcomes so that everyone can work together to keep the student safe. Quality planning will focus on strategies to manage the student’s self-harm behaviours, and include:

• information about any ongoing risks of self-harm or emotional distress, including risks or challenges in the school environment
• ways to reduce distress
• strengths and protective factors
• a support person or people for the student
• if the student has one, necessary adjustments to the student’s Individual Education Plan
• support the student can receive in the classroom and playground
• contact details of other relevant people such as treating child psychologist
• when and where to engage with professional support
• the perspectives and voices of both the student and their parents/carers, ensuring they are actively involved in developing the plan
• a step-by-step and documented approach on what the student, parent/carer, and school will do when responding to:
  • self-harm behaviours at school
  • self-harm behaviours away from school.

Empowering a student to share their experiences of what strategies have been helpful in the past and ideas about what is going to keep them safe in the future is an important step in strengthening their help-seeking behaviours and ability to cope with adversity.

When planning for the student’s recovery, consider:

• supports that are available at school
• who the student can notify if they are distressed
• details of any extra supervision
• the process for contacting parents/carers.

This ensures the:

• student is given the opportunity to identify activities and supports that promote positive mental health and wellbeing for them
• school can create a safe and supportive environment, reducing potential risks.

Outcomes of planning must be documented. Where a student has been absent from school as a result of an incident of self-harm or a suicide attempt, a Return to school support plan (DOCX) should also be developed.

Schools can collaborate with specialist services to support outcomes for children and their families and streamline their experience across services. Schools may share information as required or authorised by law, such as to:

• meet duty of care, anti-discrimination, occupational health and safety obligations
• promote the wellbeing or safety of children, or to assess or manage family violence risk.

For more information refer to: Privacy and Information Sharing and Child and Family Violence Information Sharing Schemes.

Identify a support person

A support person, or ideally people, provides support to the student during school hours. This may be a member of staff, the leadership team, school wellbeing staff, or a combination of all of these. Where possible, it is beneficial to have the student nominate their preferred support person. Having an already established relationship is beneficial and can increase the likelihood that the student will access support if they become overwhelmed at school.

Appropriate boundaries should be put in place and all parties should be clear on when and how support people can be accessed.

School-based support staff cannot be available to the student outside the school location or hours. The student should be told about the community services available outside of school hours.

Considerations for identifying a support person may include:

• the availability of the key contact person/s (times, days and location)
• clearly defined roles and responsibilities
• a process for documenting interactions and supports offered
• a set timeframe for reviewing the supports in place.

Reasonable adjustments

Schools must carefully consider any reasonable adjustments that are needed to enable the student to participate in education. Adjustments may include:

• where appropriate, a gradual re-entry for the student, building up to returning to school full-time (note that parent/carer consent is required, refer to Student Engagement for information)
• processes for leaving class to check into a pre-determined location, if needed (for example, First Aid for medical assistance, wellbeing space for a reset or a check in).

Further adjustments for secondary students may include:

• study exemptions and/or modifications to expectations, timelines and workload
• a plan to catch up on essential missed work (for example, VCE assessment tasks)
• providing a separate space for students to complete assessment tasks, if needed.

For more information on reasonable adjustments, refer to Students with Disability.

Ongoing monitoring and support

Mental health and subsequent risk is fluid and any planning and subsequent action represents a moment in time. It is important to continue to check in with the student about their mental health and wellbeing and check planning continues to be appropriate.

Staff should be alert for any changes in the student’s behaviour, thoughts or emotions. If they are concerned, staff are encouraged to enquire sensitively and refer the student to school wellbeing staff for additional support. Staff responsible for monitoring and supporting the student must be documented on the student’s record.

It may be useful to identify a team of school staff who meet regularly to ensure the student continues to be supported. This team may consist of the student, parents/carers, teacher, SSS and school wellbeing staff.

When devising a return to school plan, it is important to offer options that the school can appropriately resource. For example, if the school offers increased supervision of the student, it is essential that resources are available to implement this strategy.

Providing the details of the supervision arrangements and any limitations to these, particularly over transitions such as break times and moving between classes, is key in ensuring the school fulfils its duty of care to the student.

If applicable, regularly reviewing the return to school plan will allow the school to make amendments to the level of supervision it is able to provide in response to the changing levels of distress experienced by the student. Special consideration should be given to any excursions or camps that are scheduled following the student’s return to school as well as other events that the student identifies as stressful. All decisions should be made in collaboration with SSS, parents/carers, the student (where appropriate) and any external mental health professional involved in supporting the student.

Supporting students completing VCE including the VCE Vocational Major (VM)

Schools may approve special provisions for both classroom learning and school-based assessments to enable students to participate in learning. For more information, refer to, Special provision for classroom learning and school-based assessment.

Special Examination Arrangements may also be approved for students with disabilities, illnesses or other circumstances that affect their ability to access the General Achievement Test (GAT) and VCE external assessments. Special Examination Arrangements applications are made to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) through the student’s school.
For more information, refer to, Special Examination Arrangements for VCE external assessments or email the Special Provisions team at vcaa.special.provision@education.vic.gov.au or phone 1800 205 455.

Transition from primary to secondary school or between schools

When a student who has self-harmed is transitioning to a new school, information should be shared with that school so they can provide appropriate support to the student and ensure their wellbeing and safety.

This is the case whether the self-harm behaviours have occurred recently, are ongoing, or there is a record of self-harm behaviours in the past (including years earlier).

Information must be shared in a timely manner. Consideration should be given to potential delays involved in transferring student files, in particular when the student is transitioning to a school in another network.

Another consideration is who the information should be shared with at the new school. For a student transitioning to secondary school, it may be most appropriate for the wellbeing leader to know, but not necessarily the teachers and sub-school leaders. The frequency, duration and intensity of self-harm behaviours may also help to determine what information is shared and with whom.

Information about the student’s circumstances can be shared under the Child and Family Violence Information Sharing Schemes, where the requirements for sharing are met.

For more information, refer to Information Sharing Guidance and Tools, Primary to Secondary School Transition and Enrolment policies.