Juliet Adloune (School mental health expert): Mental health and wellbeing

EPISODE NOTES In this episode, Claire talks with Juliet Adloune: a school improvement adviser and mental health expert. Juliet had always wanted to be a teacher and, from a young age, had planned ahead mapping out her own journey through education by working out what she needed to achieve at each stage in order to be able to train as a teacher. Juliet talks about how, having been born and brought up in Manchester, she had experienced many positive influences on her life through being exposed to a wide range of backgrounds, religions and cultures as a part of her upbringing. After training to be a teacher at Cambridge’s Homerton College, Juliet found that she loved the area and has stayed ever since working in and with schools within Cambridgeshire Education Authority. Eventually moving into leadership, Juliet became a deputy headteacher and then a headteacher before taking on the role of a local authority school improvement adviser. Juliet discusses her belief in the importance of mental health within schools. After becoming a qualified mental health first aider herself, Juliet realised how important this was to her and she became a trainer for the programme and an advocate for raising the profile of wellbeing. Throughout this episode, Juliet shares her thoughts, experiences and advice around this key aspect of school life.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Raise the profile of mental health.Mental health is just as important as physical health and they are inextricably linked. While we have a statutory duty to have a first-aider in schools for physical injuries, it is not yet the case for mental health support. This is especially important now and for the future given the possible long-term impact of the coronavirus on people’s mental health. Adult mental health is just as important as that of the children.While children’s safety and security is of paramount importance, the mental health of adults in school is as equally significant. An analogy would be the aeroplane safety announcement where adults are told to put on their own face-mask first because you can’t be effective in looking after those around you if you are not in the best place yourself.With that, successful wellbeing in schools is, generally, based more around giving people time and space, and promoting a positive attitude to mental health rather than just making token gestures which do not add real benefit or value. Start early in teachers’ careers with mental health awareness.Raising awareness of mental health much more in initial teacher training and through school induction programmes could have significant benefits for newly qualified teachers. Even something as seemingly straightforward as promoting effective time-management strategies and good organisational skills can remove some of the key causes of stress for new teachers which, in turn, makes for better overall mental health. BEST MOMENTS “The world around us has many limitations and lots of pushes and pulls on resources. However, there is a lot of support out there. You are not alone. It's about opening the door for yourself to seek support.” “I think the ethos in a school, that feeling you get when you go into a school and it feels like it's caring and compassionate, it does come from the top. And that's because the person at the top is being looked after and looks after themselves. And we do sometimes have to ask for that. We have to say 'this is what I would like' or 'this is what I need'.” “I say this with my sense of humour popping out already: we don't solve wellbeing with donuts on a Friday.” “Giving people time and space and the feeling that you are not going to be judged is a much, much more impactful wellbeing strategy.” “I think that makes a big difference to anybody's life: you still have pressures, you still have stresses, but if you love the jobs you are in or the job you have, it makes a big impact and a big difference on your outlook on that and how you feel about yourself and how you fit into that society of work.” “We don't always appreciate what we don't know what and what we're not involved in. And as we said about mental health, if you don't have the knowledge, then that sometimes can skew how you think about things.” “Because I was working with schools, often in difficulty, I was finding that, as time went on, the things that I noticed most about what made my work impactful was because I built relationships with people and because I didn't employ a one-size-fits-all [approach].” “My advisory role has always been, in school, what I call a 'hands-on approach'. So my work in school improvement has been not just saying what needs to be done, but showing people how it could be done and working alongside them to do it.” “[People] might say, 'I've got a bad back' or 'I'm not feeling great' or 'I'm under the weather' because they don't feel able always to be open about their mental health. Unfortunately, stigma and discrimination around mental health does remain.”   VALUABLE RESOURCES Juliet Adloune – Facebook: www.facebook.com/mhfa.julietadloune Juliet Adloune – LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/juliet-adloune-318b9656 Samaritans 24-hour telephone support: 116 123 Samaritans online: https://www.samaritans.org/ Shout 24-hour text support: 85258 Shout online: https://giveusashout.org/ Classroom Secrets Kids: https://kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/   ABOUT THE HOST 'My mother is a teacher. I will never be a teacher.' - Claire Riley Claire arrived at the end of her performing arts degree with no firm plans to move into the entertainment industry. A fully funded secondary teaching course seemed like the perfect way to stall for a year on deciding what to do with her life. Turns out, teaching was her thing.  Three years in a challenging secondary school - check. Two years in primary schools with over 90% EAL children - check. Eight years doing day-to-day supply across 4-18 - check. If there's one thing she learnt, it was how to identity the best ideas from every school in terms of resources and use that knowledge to create something that would work for teachers far and wide. In 2013, Classroom Secrets was born. Claire had seen other resource sites and wanted to add something to the market that she felt was missing. More choice + More quality = Balance. Claire is a self-proclaimed personal development junkie and is always looking for ways to learn and improve. It's usually centred around business, her new-found passion. In 2019, Claire launched The Teachers' Podcast that hit that charts on launch and is listed in the top 200 educational podcasts most weeks. The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.