Life skills
Health education: Mental health promotion
When applied to the issue of mental health, skills-based health education can be part of a broader effort to create a healthy psycho-social environment at school. A healthy school environment has been shown to enhance students' psycho-social and emotional well-being and learning outcomes when it:
- promotes cooperation rather than competition;
- facilitates supportive, open communications;
- views the provision of creative opportunities as important; and
- prevents physical punishment, bullying, harassment and violence.
As an example, the Gatehouse Project has been developing and evaluating a school-based mental health promotion strategy in Australia since 1996.
