 Welcome to Pukipondas, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. I'm Pukie Nightsmith and I'm your host. Today's question is, how can we support school staff mental health and I'm in conversation with Amy Sayer. So, I'm Amy Sayer. I have been teaching for 13 years now and I am a trained mental health first aider and I have written my first book which is going to be released in December this year. Which is very exciting and we are talking about the very subject of your book which is how can we support school staff mental health. So, first of all, why does that matter? Why were you writing about that? Yeah, so I've done the mental health first aider course with a group of my colleagues and I think during it was a two-day course and it's quite an intense course looking at you know different types of mental ill health and kind of how it's portrayed in the media and how it's going to affect the students that we're teaching but also kind of the staff that we are around on a daily basis. And out of the group of people that I was trained with kind of every single one of them had a connection to mental health and they were quite happy to kind of share that and talk about it but it also made me think hang on there is a massive gap in something going on for school staff so we spend a lot of time quite rightly thinking about you know how to make the curriculum right for students to be happy and resilient and develop positive mental health habits. But alongside that there has to be some sort of staff strategy because otherwise inevitably you're going to get into the situation where staff are going to have to leave a job they really like because the structure of the school or the kind of ethos about mental health just isn't as it needs to be. So kind of from that course I started getting really interested in how kind of different schools have done things and I'm really lucky that I work in a school that is fantastic and does everything it possibly can to help people and that are struggling with their mental health. But and the big butt is I've got lots of colleagues that I've kind of trained with over the years I've done workshops with and that hasn't been the case and they've had to jump from school to school and people are just too scared to talk about it. So the why behind it is actually there's a time now where teaching has got a recruitment crisis people aren't staying in teaching if they've got mental ill health because the systems just aren't there. And compared to other occupations teaching is kind of the statistics behind it show that it's got a lot more work related stress depression and anxiety. So something is going wrong in the system and it's a real shame because people that really people don't go into teaching chess for the holiday because it's fun and it's fun sometimes most of the time but there's also this massive kind of pressure within the system and if the school doesn't deal with that pressure and structurally kind of organising things in the right way then teachers leave and that's really sad because we need people to stay and teach him because they love it. And you specifically looked in your book at mental health and mental ill health rather than kind of well-being and that's sort of what you've brought that's different and new and why was it important for you to tackle that kind of aspect of it the kind of ill at end if you like? Yeah I guess just kind of reading different resources there are some really good books out there already about teacher well-being so I didn't really want to travel on anyone's toes or do something that had already been done really well and I think the more research I've done into it the more I've kind of realised that it was an avoidance of wanting to engage in talking about mental health and just not really knowing what to do so lots of schools don't know what reasonable adjustments they can make for colleagues that are struggling they don't even know how to talk about it you know like they'll say really patronising things to people not in not trying to patronise them because they want the best but it if you're struggling with your mental health and someone saying to you oh if you tried some yoga or um oh like yeah we all have bad days at this time of the year like that is literally gonna cause more stress rather than um kind of help with their mental health so um yeah it's it's a combination of seeing that there is a you know statistically issues to do with staff that are struggling with their mental health leaving the profession when actually it could be prevented um and well-being obviously ties into that you know you can't have a really good policy about mental health with a general lack of care of well-being of staff um but conversing you can't just have oh we've got a well-being program in our school it's fantastic you know we've got like yoga after school on Friday and we've got like creative activities if the bigger things the structural things and also the conversations that people are having with their staff about mental health aren't all time together as kind of a holistic approach I guess so is it more important that we're kind of addressing the root causes of some of the triggers for mental ill health because from what you're saying it sounds like you know as a workplace that um schools might trigger mental illness or is it about supporting people who might have kind of underlying conditions anyway or is it a combination of the two yeah I think it's probably a combination of the two so recognising the triggers thing is is really important because um lots of the times uh in school because of the nature of the job and how you know it's much easier to do work and help children than it is to look after yourself because that's why people go into teaching because they want to look after kids and help them um if you're not getting that right then um all sorts of different things could trigger poor mental health so you could start to you know all sorts of things like not sleeping very well and you know not doing exercise not eating um and there are lots and lots of events in schools that could be quite triggering for mental ill health you know you're you're dealing with children that have been victims of violence or abuse or there's other safeguarding things going on you know on a weekly basis probably um and if if you haven't got the uh you know the capacity within your staff to actually ask those questions and to have like that that um culture of honesty and openness then staff could be triggered by something and then start to experience symptoms of mental ill health but if leaders aren't kind of comfortable asking tricky questions then that person's going to start to have worse and worse symptoms possibly go off um and not actually address kind of the root cause of what triggered that response in the first place so I guess it's a fine line isn't it between um the conversations that you can have with staff as um a colleague or a member of your team versus the sorts of conversations that they're going to need to have with the therapists and I guess it's about signposting them a lot of the time um because you could you know if someone's been triggered by a particular event that's happened to a child and it's something that's happened to them as a child you know it's not the right place necessarily to talk to a colleague about that because they might not be at a process in the right way with you but um it's about signposting them to the right support services so they know um you know like for example uh education support is fantastic because that's the 24 seven uh phone line that can give people um working schools counseling for free and you know access to resources because sometimes you don't want to talk about it with people in your own school um because it's either too hard or because you don't feel that it's the right ethos um and sometimes you just want to hear you want to speak to a stranger and just have a bit of event about how things are for you in that way. And what are the kind of practical steps that you think schools can and sort of should be taking what can we all be doing um so you've talked about signposting but what else can we do? I guess it's about offering staff as much training about mental health as in staff mental health as possible um so for example like with new teachers uh that needs to be part of their training because the way that they set themselves up as a teacher from the beginning is vital um and they'll start to come up with habits and routines you know like whether they're able to fit in going to the gym or meeting up with friends and as soon as you start teacher training because it's so intense those students can easily just kind of be cut out and you don't realize how important they are until it's too late and you start to become ill like physically ill or mentally ill um so training new teachers is really really important because hopefully they'll then develop a kind of strategies that will give them a kind of resilience to how things are going to be because teachers the teacher training year is so stressful because it's just so intense you know there's the capacity for downtime is very small if you allow it to be there's always something else you can make a new resource or a new display for your classroom but you need to have those boundaries and I think it's oh you know schools need to say that to new teachers is that those boundaries need to be in place and that you don't feel guilty about that because you need to spend time looking after yourself because you know if you're not there because it's kind of gone bad because you haven't had that capacity to look after yourself then actually that's going to have a negative effect on everything you know you'll feel rubbish you know you'll feel rubbish about the kids and not being there so definitely staff training is important um and also kind of sharing with staff a process about who they go to and what can be offered to support them if they are struggling with their mental health and I think what's really tricky in schools um and obviously I I spoke to kind of lots of different head teachers and people that I've worked with over the years about this what's really tricky is because it is such a stressful environment by its nature as in the amount of things you have to do the amount of interactions that you have to have and the amount of organization and just brainpower that's needed to entertain children for five hours a day um that kind of that amount of energy that's required often can lead you to bad habits and so what what needs to happen is there needs to be kind of a referral system so there could be someone on the leadership team that is kind of the designated staff mental health lead um it doesn't have to be someone on the leadership team but it needs to be someone that is respected and trusted by the leadership team so for example it could be um you know a pastoral leader or someone in school that just really cares about mental health it's not really about their title it's about their capacity to care and listen but also the fact that they could actually do something if they needed to to give kind of practical support so the sorts of things that you could do um are kind of do some staff cpd sessions about what reasonable adjustments look like for mental health within the school so um the the equality act of 2010 basically says that if someone is struggling with their mental health all workplaces but particularly in this case schools have a legal obligation to give them some reasonable adjustments to uh basically mean that they can work in the best way that they can and get better or start a process where you know their mental health can be better than it has been but reasonable adjustments are not well known by schools um and if it's not a transparent process this is what we can offer in our school for everyone irrespective of you know age responsibility amount of hours they work it needs to be a transparent and fair process and if we can say to staff actually look this is a reasonable adjustment and reasonable adjustment is a bit of a naff phrase isn't it because it's so um it's so it's so you know it's just really cloudy isn't it a reasonable adjustment someone could say well i think that's a reasonable adjustment and someone else could say i don't think that's a reasonable adjustment and and and the idea is that it needs to be a reasonable adjustment up to the point that it's not affecting kind of the student's well-being as well so for example it wouldn't be reasonable to say um i am struggling with depression anxiety at the moment so i'm going to need to have three days off a week to do counselling and to do some exercise because three days a week is quite a lot of time and you're then starting to go into the territory of if the students are missing their class teacher for three days out of the five is that going to have an effect on them and the answer is probably yes so it's really really tricky because you want to get the best from your staff um but they need to know what's available so for example if someone needs to have a therapy session once a week and the only time that their therapist can do is during an afternoon when they've got a lesson it would be reasonable to say for a short period of time you know i don't know three or six months but if they need to go to that therapy session once a week that is okay for them to have that as an authorized absence as long as they plan the cover work um and work around it um and again if someone perhaps is starting to take medication for a mental health illness then actually it would be reasonable for them to perhaps do reduced hours for a small amount of time just for their body to adapt so it's about having kind of case studies to show staff this is what we can do to support you and kind of this is our responsibility but this is your responsibility as well so it's kind of working together i guess and and it sounds like one of the really key things here is about creating a culture and an environment where people are able to have these discussions openly and honestly so that we can find ways forwards together and how do you make that happen um that's quite a big leap perhaps from where some schools are right now no absolutely yeah so you've kind of got obviously you've got a spectrum of where schools are in terms of looking after staff mental health and you've got some which i can't even believe in saying this literally don't talk about staff mental health at all and you know like if you were to mention it it's like you might you might be then locked away in a dark classroom at the end of a corridor somewhere because it's so ridiculous um that is actually going on you know you've got schools that are ignoring doctors advice about you know reduced hours or reduced responsibilities for a short period of time you've got uh leadership teams that don't understand you know how mental health medication can affect people's bodies and therefore make it harder for them to do certain parts of their job for a short amount of time while their bodies adjusting um you've got schools that are you know not giving people time off to go to therapy or expecting them to come back after a therapy session which is just utterly ridiculous because you know you'd need that processing time afterwards and you know if you're dealing with upsetting stuff you're not exactly going to really come bouncing through the door to deal with 30 teenagers again um so that is kind of one end of the scale however and the hopeful message kind of of the book and everything that I've done is it can be changed and and it's a combination of you know the leaders of the school a recognizing that it is an issue that needs to be dealt with um and that you need to talk about it giving them the tools to actually talk about it as in what phrases do they need to say because I think well I don't think I know from different kind of uh research and things but actually it's people's fear of making the situation worse that stops them from having the conversations okay um so um yeah it's it's it's a bit like um yeah the like you know like you say in things that you've done the worst thing you can say is to say nothing right um yeah so you've got some schools that um someone would come back from being off from having an episode of mental ill health and they won't want to talk to them about it um and I'm just expecting to get to get on with it and you know like it will just be treated the same as any other absence but actually if there are things that have triggered that period of mental ill health for that person within the school environment it's really important that you're showing them that you're prepared to talk about those things and ask the tricky questions um the the other thing alongside actually having kind of the practical sentences to ask people um is kind of the capacity for genuine empathy and kind of vulnerability I guess like you don't want to team leaders in their school that are acting like robots that don't want to talk about their feelings obviously you don't want people that are kind of talking about their feelings all the time because then it gets a bit trippy but there has to be this balance between leaders being prepared to take a step back and say you know what yeah I found that bit really hard and you know what in my this period of my life you know I was really struggling with OCD because of this and and it's not that necessarily uh you know giving your whole history of your mental health to your staff but you genuinely have to care about it um and that's really tricky because you can't really teach that to leaders and it's not part of their interview question you know you're probably going to get an interview question that says are you able to analyze data and obviously the answer will be yes but you're not usually given such an explicit question as if a member of staff was starting to show symptoms of poor mental health what would you do with that what would you be able to say or how would you be able to support that member of staff so I think the more the more leaders are doing it um and modeling that best practice with each other the the better things will be because really as a teacher you want to know that the whole leadership team are behind the ethos um and I think if someone is not the whole point is it's okay to say you know like I think it's really important that we talk about this um and it's it's down to them like they need to they need to have the skill set they need to be given the training to do that but they genuinely need to realize how much of an impact it's having on the teaching profession because I think you know it's very easy to say oh you know with that teacher left because like it's a really stressful job and they couldn't hack it um or like it's a really stressful job and you know they just wanted to try something else but actually the harder thing is to think about you know what something's going wrong in our school because like all of these people that are really good at teaching and go into it for the right reasons are leaving so something is going wrong and and there needs to be that transparency between people that are having to leave for the poor mental health actually speaking up and saying you know like if I go to the doctors and the doctors is coming back and saying I need reduced hours for a fortnight and I'll make this work because I'll set the cover and I'll make sure that everything's in the right place but that should be okay you know a school shouldn't be able to ignore a doctor's note but conversely they shouldn't even think about you know denying someone the support they need because it's not unreasonable and it's not forever you know um you know a school investing in someone's mental health then in quite a small way as in it won't cost that much money um could have a massive impact and it could be that they just go through you know a tricky period for you know a year but they have access to therapy and you know there were medication things start to change but if schools aren't brave enough to have those conversations they're going to keep hitting this barrier where good teachers that love doing the job just aren't staying with them and that's just not okay and do you think that with the right support anyone with you know regardless of where on the spectrum their mental health sits would have the capacity to fulfill a role in a school or do you think that for some people those issues just do become too great even with all the reasonable adjustments um so in terms of the foremost common um mental ill health conditions that staff will suffer from you've got depression anxiety PTSD and OCD so within those related I guess uh different kind of areas of mental ill health there are going to be certain kind of triggers that have caused that period of mental ill health and I suppose it involves a partnership of the person being kind of self-aware enough to go right I need some help here this is gonna be horrible and it's gonna be rubbish but nothing's as rubbish it may not be able to do with those kids every day um so it relies on a bit of self-awareness and braveness on the person that's struggling um but it also relies on the school being prepared to make the reasonable adjustments and to have faith that things are going to get better because I think like it's really important that leaders understand that with mental health um you know things are going to be tricky for quite a long time but if the person has got the right support in school they're not going to feel ashamed of the things they're going to have to do so they're not going to have to hide the fact that they're having therapy or on medication or you know doing other treatments that they need um and and there needs to be success stories you know like there needs to be people out there are writing and saying that this is what has happened but actually my school was fantastic and I know what the triggers are going to be for my poor mental health and I have a plan so the other thing that I talk about in the book is this idea of like a care plan for teachers or all school staff so I don't mean to say teachers it's just because I'm a bit biased but um you know like people that work with children so you know librarians uh teaching is just for everyone that's really important to our school because it is a case of everyone working together on a daily basis um so again this needs to be part of a whole school policy it needs to be standard for leaders to be able to come up with this care plan with the person that is struggling with their mental health and it'll be tricky because if someone's starting to struggle with their mental health they might not be aware of lots of things that have triggered them to be poorly um and they might not be aware of what they need but the format of the care plan is it's about sort of making them feel um unashamed of what's going on for them and just kind of facing up to things really so on the care plan it could have things like um what are the signs and symptoms that my mental health is deteriorating so it's not just going to have to happen overnight you know that I mean unless something particularly triggering has happened with with a child that then has um you know caused um some sort of mental health illness um it could be that there have been lots of things gradually gradually piling up and that is the general kind of trend so it would be things like uh you know people perhaps uh looking tired all the time because they're struggling with their anxiety or depression um or PTSD or OCD and it could be that they are losing or gaining weight and it could be that they are not socializing as much so it might be that they're not going to start from for lunchtime or they know they're not talking about you know meeting up with their friends or you know all of those sorts of signs and symptoms which you kind of just take as part of teacher life because it can easily be that way you know like being a teacher can just be so all-consuming that it is easy to go I don't know I'm not going to go to the pub with my mates tonight because it's just I'm just so tired um or you know I'm not going to go for a swim before school because I've really got to get that marking done um or I'm not going to eat right because you know I'm on duty so I'm just going to like grab something from the canteen and like shove it on my face and then not actually like you know get any nutritious food whatsoever the whole day so it's like this slippery slope of if you keep doing all those things consistently then it's going to lead to something bad um and just having it on a bit of paper like these are the signs and symptoms that person can kind of look out for you and it doesn't have to be explicit like here's a checklist have you done these things this week it just is like a general vibe isn't it and you know that if someone's doing these behaviors it's likely they're really re-struggling at the moment and then what's helpful to know is for the leader what's going to help that person so it could be um that if they've got a non-teaching period at the end of the day that they can go home earlier um it could be that again if they've got non-contact teaching at the start of the day they can go to the gym or for a swim or something um or it could be that you know they might need to have some time off you know in afternoons to go to a doctor's appointment or to a therapist's appointment so it's just like a a one-page summary of what to look out for how schools can support that person and what they're comfortable with people knowing as well which is really important so you know obviously this is going to not be a document that everyone is going to see it's up to you who you share it with it might be that you share it with your team of people that you're working with if you're a leader because there could be something going on that you need to have people that you're working with on a daily basis knowing it or it could be to something that your line manager has or it could just be something that your head teacher has it's got to be something that you feel comfortable with so you know there could be situations um within a school that will trigger episodes of poor mental health for people and if that's on that care plan and something has happened that that teacher has had to deal with during the day which is triggered you know or could trigger an episode of poor mental health then at the end of the day just having someone know that that is going to be or it could be an issue for you and having a conversation quietly you know like you know that happened with that child today you know that could be a trigger for you do you need any space to talk about it or what are you going to do to look after yourself when you go home today and then perhaps catch up with them first thing in the morning so um you know the amount of different things that teachers are having to deal with just because of how schools are organized now you know there aren't as many pastoral leaders or support members of the staff that children can go to for support that's a financial thing it's not to do with schools not valuing it um and so classroom teachers are having to pick up more and more kind of safeguarding issues or mental health issues within the students in a way that they perhaps wouldn't have done before and the tricky thing about creating a culture where you are talking about mental health with children in schools which is fantastic setting them up for life as they know kind of the skills and what to look out for is that it forces the adults that are working with them and looking after them to have to talk about their own mental health and they might not be ready for that so it's kind of tricky and you need to make sure you've got a system that can support staff on a daily basis if it's needed can you share a couple of examples of kind of really good practice like simple things that people could implement that you've seen sort of during your your travels and your research for the book so um so examples of reasonable adjustments do you mean yeah yeah so um so reasonable adjustments have a thing so for example um yeah teachers that are starting a need type of medication for any mental health if you need depression or anxiety um it's giving them time off to have doctor's appointments at a time that suits them because obviously if you're talking about mental health with a doctor it's useful and easier if you have the same doctor and that doctor is not going to have an infinite amount of appointments so you know if you are stuck in a system where your doctors your doctor that you you want to be able to talk about your mental health with isn't available you know evenings or whatever you're going to need to have that time off to go to appointments regularly and it would be reasonable to allow that member of staff to have regular appointments off to check in with their doctor particularly if they're on a new medication so you know typical kind of SSRIs that are given for depression anxiety have about a four week period before they are kind of actually working in a system properly so during those first four weeks it's vital that you're checking in with that member of staff because you know they could be struggling with you know feeling sick or just being too tired or not sleeping or you know not eating right and all those sorts of things so it would be reasonable if a member of staff was a staff in custom medication that if they're saying you know what I'm just so wiped out I think if I went home perhaps an hour early each day for a couple of weeks that would really help because then I can actually you know have some downtime have some extra sleep if I need it um and that'll support me in the longer you know that is really reasonable um and it's down to the leaders to work out a system that allows that but there's not an excuse for that not to happen um another example could be um like I said about if someone needs a therapy for example um so I know that our Academy chain kind of has paid for a system where people get six free sessions of telephone counseling so um and I think that's quite common practice in a lot of schools um but obviously again it needs to be managed into the work kind of week so if someone's having a therapy session at one o'clock in the afternoon which is that's when the person's available then it wouldn't be reasonable to ask them to come back to teach in afternoon less than afterwards um so because again you know it's not the session in itself it's how much processing needs to be done afterwards which actually allow that person to recover that's going to take time um and and they deserve that time um and I suppose other things like um I'm just trying to think of other case studies of people that I've worked with um so it could be that if um you know I haven't got any other ideas I'm done that's fair enough I wanted to ask what if someone's performance in their role is impacted by their mental ill health like if they're they're not doing as good a job as they used to or could what should we do then I think it's really important to be honest with them um and that's a hard conversation to have um it's a hard conversation to have and it's a hard conversation to listen to so I guess it's that whole thing about genuinely caring about your staff and having that empathy that you know what it's like it's like with the children that we teach you know their behavior is a symptom of something something has happened to them to create that behavior so actually if someone's had a really good track record for like years and years and has been a fantastic teacher and I just forgot to do marking or they haven't put their data into the confused from the right time if you respect them and if you genuinely care for them it's okay to say you know what I've noticed that actually you've been missing a few deadlines there's something you know there's anything we can do to support you and it's about being brave enough to have that conversation because I think if you're not brave the easiest thing to do is just tell them off and put them on capability decisions and they'll leave teaching like it does happen which is terrifying but actually investing that time into your staff and trying to get to the root cause of things and it it might not be that they are aware enough of what's going on for them to be able to answer that right then it might be that you need to say to that member of staff that I'm really worried and I really want to support you and could you perhaps go away you know overnight and have a think about is there anything that I could do to help so for example do you need an extension on that deadline or is something else going on and at that point they're probably either going to go now it's fine because they're in complete denial but then overnight they might start to go okay right they've asked me so they care all right let's do this I'm going to be honest and I'm going to be brave and it's going to be horrible or they might just break down crying and realize that they just can't hope and have that realization there and then it's about giving that space to kind of come to a solution for themselves and the good thing about teachers is you know they're natural problem solvers you know like on a daily basis we're having to micromanage like hundreds of little decisions and that resilience that's required goes a long way when thinking about mental health because it's almost like you'd be able to think about what you'd be able to offer one of your students in your care like if they were struggling and having that as an ethos within a school then sort of rubs off on staff mental health I think as well because you'd know what sorts of things you might need to ask for or that you'd be entitled to ask for without being ashamed that's a really good way of looking at it actually thinking yeah what questions would you ask of a student what might you be able to do for them and how could the supply for yourself or member of staff that you're concerned about what do you hope your book will kind of achieve what would success look like for you from your book how would things change um I think oh that's a very big question um I think a range of things so less people leaving teaching when they really really love the job and deserve to have the job um less shame around mental health in schools um more openness from leaders to be able to have those conversations and not be scared about asking the wrong question um and yeah it's quite a systemic change really and it is happening in loads of schools like that that is kind of a hopeful thing from this because we start to read the statistics you think right okay we have a quite a serious problem here um and unless something quite drastic happens nothing will change and you'll end up losing good tears you'll end up having teachers that are really really struggling getting to the point of being dangerously ill with their mental health and then not being a system to kind of you know um perceive that that is happening um so yeah I think success would be people staying in teaching that love it um and deserve to stay in teaching um schools being brave enough to have conversations and leaders being brave enough to be vulnerable about mental health and genuinely ask with the capacity to listen to the answer without it being uncomfortable because I think teachers like to think they're really good at listening um they're very good at listening to be problem solvers because you know like if a child's running in and is having a breakdown because they've lost the calculator you know like we're really good at dealing with that really really quickly um and if a child's really struggling something they just need a bit of support like an encouragement we do that all the time like 24 seven but if a child is asking you to listen to them and really listen that's hard and it takes time that schools don't allow by their organisation so it's about leaders making time for their staff to have conversations about mental health um and realising that you know there is going to be like at the end of the tunnel like just because someone's with either diagnosis or something like with the right treatment they could be you know real success story personally and professionally and it's about having faith that you've seen that spark in them that wanted that you know made them want to be a teacher in the first place and if that spark hasn't gone then it's about just working together to make sure that you can get it back again wow that's that's a lot of hopes but I think that yeah that's that's brilliant I'm really excited to to kind of see how things will change in the coming years because I feel like we've come a long way in the last few years and particularly with student mental health but that staff mental health is really lagging behind and as you say there's been quite a big impact on staff mental health of all the work done on on student mental health and yeah I really hope that as people begin to take staff mental health more seriously that we will see a bit of a step change what um what thought would you like to to kind of leave people with Renee Brown has done a lot of work about kind of um being brave enough to be vulnerable and about how important empathy is in the world not just in schools but I think it's very very easy for school leaders to show sympathy towards someone that is struggling with their mental health and they'll say things like oh you know like you know you do a really good job and the kids really love being with you and and the things that are trying to make you better but if you're really struggling with your mental health are going to have exactly the opposite effect and it's about being brave enough to sit with someone in that distress and show them genuine empathy um and try and understand what it's like for them and sit through their eyes um so that you can work together because if there isn't that understanding of how things are and if someone is just showing the token sympathy gesture which makes them feel better but doesn't actually do anything then nothing will change but if you are genuinely listening with empathy and trying to understand what it feels like to be them but also how you could work together to make things better then that's got to be the way to to change things in schools I think