Most young people do not know how to take care of their mental health and are poorly equipped to deal with stress-related problems. They are also slow to seek help. Research findings such as these have prompted the North Western Health Board to hold a special mental health day at a Sligo school, during which pupils will link up with an EU conference in Helsinki, Finland.
Senior cycle pupils at Ballinode Vocational School will represent Ireland in a telecommunications link with the Helsinki conference, where future EU guidelines for the promotion of positive mental health among young people are being drawn up.
Finland holds the EU presidency and the conference organisers wanted to involve school pupils from other member-states. A school in Greece has also been selected.
Ms Anne Marie Calleary of the health promotion unit at the NWHB said one of the main issues to be addressed with young people was their reluctance to seek help.
"They think that going for help would suggest there was something seriously wrong with them, and for young people it is very important to fit in and feel normal," she said.
The project aims to put "a human face" on the services available, to promote positive attitudes about mental health and to teach the young people about stress management and skills to cope with problems.
"There needs to be a more positive attitude, because when people think about mental health they tend to think about illnesses. But with physical health, people know about the importance of keeping healthy and they don't just think about cancer and other diseases," Ms Calleary said.
Health board personnel have also found that many adults suffering from stress and anxiety-related problems have been experiencing symptoms for many years. Ms Kathleen Barry, a cognitive behaviour therapist who will teach the pupils about stress management, said some people she worked with had been experiencing panic attacks for 20 years.
These patients had often been avoiding supermarkets or other public places for years. Two out of every 100 people who present to hospitals do so because of panic attacks, she said. Ms Barry said it was important to explain that stress was a normal part of life but can have serious effects. She said there was a wide range of reasons for the stress young people experienced, from problems in relationships with friends and family to the pressure to perform well at exams. "They are also under a lot of peer pressure to experiment with drugs and alcohol and to be sexually active at a much younger age than before."
Part of the work with the students would involve asking them to identify the main pressures in their lives and to find ways of dealing with them.
"The message we also want to get across is that it doesn't mean you are weak or mentally unwell if you ask for help," Ms Barry added. Teachers and parents at Ballinode Vocational School will also be involved in the mental health day, which takes place on September 14th, and preparatory work is being carried out with pupils before the link-up with the Helsinki conference.