This chapter introduces readers to mental health and wellbeing terminology and complexities, relevant for understanding how to develop school and learning environments supportive of pupil’s mental wellbeing. Specifically, three important ideas are emphasised to briefly summarise key sources of mental wellbeing, that is, young people should feel: (1) socially included and recognised by their family, peers, and society at large; (2) a sense of control and feel like they have agency in their own life; and (3) that they have the space and time to explore and understand their developing identity. There are significant barriers to these experiences and the following chapters provide a range of examples of how pupils from diverse backgrounds may be denied these core tenets of good mental wellbeing.

Mental wellbeing is important. Thanks to decades of awareness campaigning, such a statement is widely accepted and is readily incorporated into health policymaking in the UK. Defining what is ‘good’ mental wellbeing and mental health is difficult. Definitions of good mental wellbeing vary but often centre around a person living their most ‘fulfilling life’. This definition is inherently personal, and different lifestyles will best support different people’s mental wellbeing. Typically, having good mental wellbeing means having functional relationships with family, friends, work, and community. Barriers to good mental wellbeing can come from many internal and external sources, and a complete sense of a person’s mental wellness comes from understanding a person in a place, their wants and needs, and how society can support or restrict them. The most extreme outcomes of poor mental wellbeing are what we might recognise as mental health conditions. These are clinically identified diagnoses that are associated with the experience of distress or relate to disrupted experiences of everyday life.

Receiving a clinical diagnosis of a mental health condition allows for someone to receive help and support for the challenges they experience and, often, many resources are not available to someone until they have a formal diagnosis. However, this is not to say only those with diagnosed mental health conditions need support with their mental wellbeing. Mental health diagnostics is difficult and there are many debates about how we medicalise mental wellbeing. A holistic understanding of mental wellbeing is more than just diagnosed labels though, and people can experience significant challenges in their life without meeting specific clinical criteria. Changing our thinking to a spectrum of mental wellbeing, more than just the diagnostic categories, allows us to give support to anyone who needs it, perhaps preventing further difficulties. This is much like how we discuss diet, exercise, and healthy living as preventative measures for later potential clinical risks to physical health. Throughout this text, we will discuss ‘mental wellbeing’ as a broad term that includes diagnosed mental health conditions, but also more general psychological welfare. In this book, we are interested in how we might support the mental wellbeing of school pupils, and the unique concerns and opportunities for supporting pupils from diverse backgrounds.

This book is a collection of chapters written by experts on the specific needs of pupils from diverse backgrounds. We have written this book to be a reference material, with each chapter ready to be picked up and used when advice is needed. We have focused on integrating up-to-date academic research with concrete advice for teachers looking to support their pupils. Our aim is for the chapters to be of use to anyone who is a teacher, studying to be a teacher, or is interested in mental wellbeing in education. We recognise that every pupil is unique, and their educational journey and experience of mental wellbeing will be their own. However, it can be useful to have insights to experiences and cultures that we might not be personally familiar with, and as such, each of our chapters draws on a particular general experience that a group of pupils might share. We have focused our advice on the particular pupil groups who have ‘protected characteristics’ as detailed in the UK Equality Act of 2010. This includes support for pupils who might experience unique mental wellbeing challenges due to their disability, gender, race, ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and home life (e.g. looked after children). These groupings represent pupils who face similar challenges to their experience of learning and their mental wellbeing due to exposure to prejudice, social exclusion, lack of formal support, and a lack of research in their mental wellness. This book highlights what these specific challenges might be for different groups of pupils, in a teacher-focused text. It is our hope that our chapters provide a broad overview of the essential challenges perhaps experienced by these pupils, which could facilitate conversations about mental wellbeing with pupils, caregivers, schools, and policymakers.

In this introduction, we will become more familiar with ‘mental wellbeing’ as a challenge in schools. We will discuss the challenges with identifying causes of mental wellbeing difficulties and how to practically discuss mental health. Finally, we will focus on why this information is important for teachers.

In a routine National Health Service survey conducted in 2020, 16% of children aged 5–16 years self-reported that they were experiencing symptoms in line with a mental health condition (NHS Digital Lifestyle Team, 2020). Whilst this survey was conducted during the lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing rates of diagnosed mental health conditions in children is an established trend. For example, between 1995 and 2014, the prevalence of diagnosed long-standing mental health conditions in young people increased from 0.80% of the population to 4.80% (Pitchforth et al., 2019). Statistics like this are concerning. They could be seen as suggesting that something has radically changed in our children and that they have become more vulnerable to significant mental distress. However, we should have caution with a conclusion like this on data which simply shows change over time. Time affects many things, including the awareness of, and political and financial support for, mental wellbeing interventions. When statistics show us that diagnosis rates are increasing, we could be looking at many different processes all occurring at once – not least that diagnosis prevalence could be reflecting increased access to mental health services for people who might have historically been underrepresented in psychiatric environments. Increased diagnoses are a sign of more people being recognised by medical professionals as having significant difficulties, but this might be to do with more people recognising the need for help. When we look at the data in more detail, you can find limited change in reported mental wellbeing at the same time as the changing diagnosis prevalence (Pitchforth et al., 2019). In this case, children and adolescents’ mental wellbeing does not change as much as it is the case that this translates to a diagnosis more frequently for young people in extreme distress. Historically, key barriers to accessing mental health resources for children has included issues with mental health awareness, such as perceived stigma and concerns (Owens et al., 2002). With raising awareness about mental health and integration of mental wellbeing into the curriculum (Department for Education, 2021), some of these barriers may be less than they were before, leading to more young people receiving the diagnoses their symptoms reflect.

Elsewhere, there is stronger evidence for the argument that young people’s mental health is deteriorating over time (such as Keyes et al., 2019; Sellers et al., 2019). Identifying the causes of this shift is difficult, and it is very likely that there are many complex factors in the change in culture and society over time. There is some evidence attributing a decline in mental wellbeing to increased perceived demands on young people (Schraml et al., 2011) and more focus on the importance and competitive nature of education at a younger age, especially for girls (Högberg, Strandh & Hagquist, 2020; West & Sweeting, 2003). Identifying specific causes of mental health conditions is difficult, and the causes of poor mental wellbeing can vary from person to person and be dependent on a range of factors.¹ In the face of a potential rise in individuals meeting the diagnostic criteria for a significant mental health concern, early intervention through broad consideration of mental wellbeing is essential.

Broadly paraphrasing the most important social and cultural components in mental wellbeing, it is important for young people to feel:

However, many societal processes can act as barriers to this experience. These barriers can come from many places, from being subject to overt prejudice and bullying from school peers or wider society to implicit and structural barriers, whereby biases, societal processes, and systems can restrict a young person’s opportunities. Longitudinal research, following young people to adulthood, shows us the long-term consequences that adverse experiences can have at a young age, with experiences of bullying at school (Takizawa, Maughan & Arseneault, 2014), family disruption (Gilman et al., 2003), childhood trauma (Horwitz et al., 2001), and racism (Cave, Cooper, Zubrick & Shepherd, 2020) affecting adult mental health.

We have dedicated this text to inform readers of the barriers specific groups of pupils might face. We highlight pupils who experience prejudice due to their ethnicity and religious beliefs (see Chapters 2–5, 12, and 13), developing gender identity and sexuality (see Chapters 8 and 9), societal gender expectations (see Chapters 6 and 7), family and homelife circumstances (see Chapters 10, 11, 15), or physical or mental impairments (see Chapter 14). Our list is not exhaustive, and here we hope to inspire more conversations and strategies for thinking about the personal experiences of mental wellbeing with pupils from diverse backgrounds.

Part of our aim of this book is to offer practical advice for helping pupils’ wellbeing. It is known that teachers report that they do not feel like they receive adequate training for providing health and wellbeing guidance to their pupils (Dewhirst et al., 2014) and, despite not receiving formalised training, many teachers are expected to support their pupils’ mental w...