Who's supporting us? TAFE staff perspectives on supporting students with mental illnesses

This report examines the perceptions of technical and further education (TAFE) staff in relation to supporting students with mental illnesses.

• A major issue for TAFE institutes is responding to the needs of students who do not disclose a mental illness. Mental health promotion needs to address this lack of disclosure.
  
  

• Staff felt that there was a lack of clarity about the extent of their roles in supporting students with mental illnesses. Staff acknowledge their responsibility to provide duty of care but agree that their roles should not cross over to actual provision of personal support.
  
  

• Staff require appropriate skills and collegiate support to respond confidently to the diverse needs of students with mental illnesses. This includes more opportunities for discussion and debriefing sessions with experienced staff.
  
  

• The vocational education and training (VET) sector should be concerned with education, not therapy. Staff felt that community health services see VET as a therapeutic option for their clients, rather than as education in its own right.
  
  

Students reporting a mental illness generally have lower subject and course completions than most other disability groups and the vocational education and training (VET) population as a whole (Cavallaro et al. 2005). This raises a challenge for the VET sector.

The question we aim to explore is how technical and further education (TAFE) providers in Australia are responding to the needs of students with mental illnesses. Teachers and support staff at TAFE institutes are in the frontline of support for all students. This research explores their perspectives on supporting students with mental illnesses in TAFE.

Through interviews and group discussions, views were obtained from 113 TAFE staff spread across six TAFE institutes in Australia.

Our research explored the following key issues from the perspective of TAFE staff at all levels:

• what impacts mental illnesses have on students’ learning and their lives
• what processes staff follow when they become aware a student has mental health difficulties
• what support services staff are aware of for students, both on campus and externally
• what support mechanisms staff have available to them, including professional development
• what mental health promotion activities are available on campus.

TAFE staff face significant issues in supporting students with mental illnesses. These issues were found to be common across all levels of TAFE and across jurisdictions.

… I think that while there’s a lack of knowledge you focus on the exceptional behaviour rather than the day to day. So you know, it’s kind of tackling the whole thing more holistically, so it’s about our specialist support staff, it’s about our general staff, it’s about our physical infrastructure and it’s about the learning options that are available and learner management … (Chief executive officer)

Issues and impacts of mental illnesses on learning

There is almost complete agreement that the most significant issue for TAFE is responding to the needs of students who do not disclose their mental illness. The main impact for students of their not disclosing their mental illness is that they cannot access disability support services.

Teachers in particular are most concerned for students who may be undertaking their vocational education and training during the early stages of their mental illness. These students are often not yet connected to community mental health services and may experience episodes and interruptions to their learning that impact significantly on themselves, TAFE staff and other students. While it can be assumed that a substantial proportion of people with mental illnesses studying at TAFE institutes are managing well enough to need only limited support, the remainder are experiencing significant difficulties with issues associated with learning, such that their capacity to successfully participate in training is affected.

The impacts of mental illnesses on students are diverse and significantly affect learning and completion of subjects and courses. Staff were clearly aware of this and cited some of the most common. These include: sporadic attendance, difficulties maintaining concentration and retaining information, and participation in group work. Staff also acknowledged that a student’s medication affected their learning.

There is an increasing awareness amongst staff that they are legally responsible for ensuring they provide reasonable adjustments across TAFE for students with a disability. However, there are some concerns that certain approaches to reasonable adjustment might ‘water down’ the curriculum for particular students. Other teachers find it hard to make reasonable adjustments for particular courses that require work placements as part of the assessment, knowing that some students are not well enough to undertake the work placement or that it has the potential to trigger an episode.

Support available for students

The main issue that staff have is a lack of clarity about the extent of their roles in supporting students with mental illnesses. Staff acknowledged their responsibility to provide duty of care but agreed that their roles should not cross over to actual provision of personal support. This is particularly the case for teachers, including those who have a professional background in psychology, counselling or youth work.

Most staff indicated the need to have clear protocols and processes in place in TAFE institutes to ensure they are doing all they can to support students with mental illnesses.

All TAFE institutes have disability support services on campus; however, the way these services are structured varies between jurisdictions and institutes. The majority of staff were aware of the support available for students and readily referred students to these services. Nevertheless, some staff felt there was a greater need for support services than is currently recognised and that increased services need to be made available. For example, support services for an entire institute may be located on one campus, creating access issues for students on other campuses. Improving the awareness of new and casual staff about what support is available for students with mental illnesses was also a concern for staff.

Support available for staff

To be able to respond confidently to the diverse needs of students with mental illnesses, staff require appropriate skills or support. Teachers from mainstream programs were likely to feel more overwhelmed than their colleagues from specialist program ¹ areas. Specialist teachers often relied on the advice and support from their immediate colleagues, who in many instances had professional backgrounds in psychology, social work or counselling. There were some concerns that other teaching areas lacked the support of experienced colleagues to enable regular discussion of mental health issues. Increased opportunities to discuss these issues with colleagues across different teaching areas is likely to assist staff to more successfully support students suffering from mental health difficulties.

Professional development remains an important response by TAFE institutes to ensure that teaching and support staff feel confident in providing support and adjustments for students with mental illnesses. However, staff raised issues about the kinds of professional development available in the area of mental health and how it is structured. There was a call for more practical and accessible ongoing professional development; it was reported that many opportunities were missed due to scheduling. These issues can be more problematic for casual staff.

Staff were concerned about the lack of resources available to adequately fund and staff mental health care and services in the community, particularly when TAFE institutes rely heavily on outside organisations to treat and support students with mental illnesses. The greatest concern of teachers and support staff is the capacity of external services to provide critical response and treatment for students when needed. Institutes are caught between being providers of education and training and, in a number of cases, filling the gaps that exist in community health care. Developing partnerships between institutes and key mental health services may help to improve support for students.

Mental health promotion

Mental health promotion is underdeveloped in the TAFE environment. In all the institutes we visited, almost all staff agreed that on their campuses there is very little overt promotion of positive mental health, and in some cases limited promotion of the support services available to students with mental health difficulties. Positive promotion of mental health may help to remove the stigma attached to mental illnesses and to dispel misconceptions about them.

Some staff believed that case workers and officers in various health-related organisations view and promote TAFE as a therapeutic option for their clients. Mental health providers can also promote TAFE in this way, believing that extensive support services are available for students on campus. Staff acknowledged that people attend TAFE for a variety of reasons, and positive personal outcomes are often sought and obtained. However, many agreed that TAFE should be concerned with delivering education and training, not therapy. TAFE institutes are not equipped with the resources or skills to provide intensive therapeutic support.

1 Specialist teachers: coordinators and teachers in specific programs for students with mental illnesses, as well as courses that attract higher numbers of students with mental health difficulties, such as general access and preparatory programs, community services, mental health work, alcohol and other drugs programs and some English as a second language programs; mainstream teachers: coordinators and teachers in general TAFE programs such as horticulture, information technology, media, hospitality, engineering and other trades.