Self-Harm and Attempted Suicide Response

Supporting mental health and wellbeing, and preventing self-harm

In some schools, a staff member may hold multiple roles, (for example, in a small primary school a teacher may also be the Mental Health And Wellbeing Leader). Staff are responsible for all the actions associated with each role they hold responsibility for.

School leaders

School leaders play a key role in critical incident response, as well as prevention, planning and whole of schools approaches.

The principal or their delegate must report and manage self-harm incidents in accordance with their Emergency Management Plan and the department’s Managing and Reporting School Incidents (Including Emergencies) policy.

The principal or their delegate must report all critical incidents including, self-harm, attempted self-harm, suicidal ideation, suicide or suspected suicide to the Incident Support Operations Centre (ISOC) in accordance with the Managing and Reporting School Incidents (Including Emergencies) policy.

Building a sense of psychological safety within a school builds a sense of trust and belonging. School leaders support their school to promote, build and maintain inclusive and positive environments for students. They can foster a whole-school culture that promotes and encourages positive messaging around metal health literacy and help seeking pathways.

This culture can be promoted within the school, to students and staff, and among the wider school community, including through communications to parents/carers.

For more information, refer to Mental health and wellbeing and whole-school approaches.

For actions schools can take to ensure students are and feel safe, refer to Child Safe Standards Guidance.

Underpinning a whole-school approach is the understanding that all staff have adequate and consistent training. School leaders are responsible for ensuring that:

• all staff are familiar with a clear and concise written policy and documented processes that they can implement
• clear roles and responsibilities are allocated prior to responding to a self-harm incident
• staff know their role and the limitations of their role
• educators know their obligation to report all observed and suspected self-harm incidents to school wellbeing staff and engage their support to manage self-harm incidents at school.

Educators

Educators play a key role in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of students, including promoting awareness about mental health and wellbeing, promoting positive help seeking behaviours and building awareness of coping strategies.

Educators must report all incidents to school leadership. It is important that educators understand the limitations of their role. When an educator is concerned about the mental health and wellbeing of a student, they must follow their school’s processes for making a referral to school leaders/school wellbeing staff. The wellbeing contact can work with the student and, where appropriate, parents and carers, to determine what support is needed and make additional referrals.

It is not the role of the educator to determine the reason or intent of self-harm, to undertake a risk assessment or provide treatment. A comprehensive risk assessment may be conducted by a mental health professional to understand what is underlying the self-harm behaviours and what is required to ensure safety and restore wellbeing.

Educators may be required to provide school leadership with information for an eduSafe Plus or Incident Support and Operations Centre (ISOC) incident report and a WorkSafe notification if a staff member has been injured.

Educators taking a trauma informed approach to teaching and learning consider the needs and experiences of individual students. With leadership support, they can connect with other department workforces (including Koorie Engagement Support Officers, Respectful Relationships workforce, Safe Schools), professionals and organisations (including paediatricians, out of home care, First Nations organisations, LGBTIQA+ organisations) that will enhance support for students. This helps to create a safe, supportive and empowering environment for all students, to support wellbeing and learning.

Educators are often well-positioned to identify when a student may be experiencing mental health difficulties and require support. This can include noticing changes in behaviour, recognising self-harm behaviours and enquiring sensitively about what is going on for the student. This conversation requires calmness and compassion.

For conversation prompts, refer to Implementation resource – tips for communicating with students and parents and carers (DOCX).

School wellbeing staff

Not all schools have a dedicated wellbeing leader or team, however, schools are recommended to have a staff member responsible for student wellbeing in the school such as a teacher or member of the school leadership team.

It is recommended that school wellbeing staff be the liaison for any communications with a student around self-harm behaviours and be consulted should an educator have any concern about the mental health of a student.

If a qualified wellbeing staff member, such as a psychologist, social worker, mental health nurse, mental health practitioner, occupational therapist or counsellor, is available, they can be engaged to work with the student, following appropriate consent. They can assess their mental health and the intentions of the self-harm behaviours, support the student to build other distress tolerance and coping strategies, or refer the student to support services external to the school.

School wellbeing staff may also be responsible for communicating with parents and carers and providing them with support and guidance. By, for example, providing consistent language and messaging, and helping to facilitate a positive approach to ensure the student is supported.

Primary schools – Mental health and wellbeing leaders

The Mental Health in Primary Schools initiative supports primary schools to employ a Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader, a qualified teacher, to implement a whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing for students, staff and families based on a broad knowledge of the needs of the school community. Mental Health and Wellbeing Leaders also support the school to coordinate and monitor clear referral pathways for students both internally and externally.

The role of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader is not to provide individualised support to students following distress, including self-harm and suicide risk, but rather to build staff capability to prevent and respond.

For further information, refer to the Mental Health in Schools policy.

School communities

A school community includes school leaders, staff, students, families and other relevant community members or organisations (for example, Outside School Hours Care (OSHC)).

All members of the school community play an important role in fostering positive mental health and wellbeing. They do this through supporting whole-school approaches to building and maintaining inclusive and positive environments for students, and promoting and encouraging positive messaging around mental health literacy and help-seeking pathways. This helps to build a culture that can facilitate optimal wellbeing outcomes for students.

For more information about whole-school approaches and departmental tools and resources, refer to the Mental health and wellbeing toolkit.

Student Support Services

The Student Support Services (SSS) team consists of psychologists, speech pathologists, social workers, occupational therapists and behaviour analysts who support schools to assist students who face barriers to learning and wellbeing. They work as part of a multidisciplinary area team to support schools in the provision of integrated health and wellbeing, providing group-based and individual support, workforce capacity building and the provision of specialised services.

An eduSafe Plus report could result in a phone call from SSS offering support and advice when responding to a critical incident, such as self-harm. School leadership may also contact their SSS Key Contact directly.

For information about how SSS works with schools, including how to access SSS support, refer to Student Support Services.

Considerations and school response principles

Schools should ensure they are prepared to respond to self-harm incidents. They may be guided by the following considerations and principles when documenting their policies, processes, roles and responsibilities to respond to self-harm incidents.

Considerations

• Supporting students, especially in primary schools, is unique due to the great variability in age and stages of development across the primary school years. Expressions of distress can vary between secondary school, as well as lower and upper primary school students.
• Family plays a crucial role in a young person’s life. Where appropriate, involve family in planning and response.
• There may be limited access to consistent wellbeing staff, counsellors and psychologists onsite, especially in primary schools. SSS can provide support to schools responding to incidents of student distress involving self-harm behaviours.
• Children and young people can feel shame around the behaviours they are engaging in to manage their distress. Using safe language about mental health helps to protect children from stigma.

School response principles

• The physical and psychological safety of all is paramount.
• Use a calm, compassionate and non-judgemental approach that validates the student’s experiences and fosters healing.
• Avoid making assumptions and reactive decision making.
• Treat each student as an individual and include their voice in school based planning.
• Share responsibility for supporting a student, rather than leaving it with only one individual.
• Maintain confidentiality for the student. Only discuss self-harm behaviours with those who need to know.
• Include relevant adults and professionals who provide care to the student when responding to self-harm.
• The responsibility for undertaking risk assessments rests with a mental health professional, either internal or external to the school.
• Follow all procedures for responding to and reporting abuse, by following the Four Critical Actions for Schools, if a staff member becomes aware that a child or young person has been abused or is at risk of abuse.
• Use culturally informed and appropriate methods of communication and subsequent supports.
• Seek support when needed, self-care is important.