Great Minders Think Alike

Bear necessities

ith The Guardian newspaper in the UK now reporting on Greystones’ primary school’s recent ban on smartphones, it’s heartening to see that good ideas can still travel fast.

And ever since the same eight schools a month ago called for regular play therapist visits for kids, everyone from The Irish Times to RTÉ News have been running features, keeping tabs and shouting for something to be done for a young generation buckling under the weight of social media pier pressure.

Which is where our Minister For Health Stephen Donnelly comes in, writing a strong op-ed piece in The Irish Times on May 31st, calling for a nationwide pact on smartphone bans for our young kids.

And when the US surgeon general is warning of ‘ample indicators’ that social media can have ‘a profound risk of harm to the mental health and wellbeing of children and adolescents‘, you know this is far more than just over-protective parents stamping their Jimmy Choos in a snowflake town.

Donnelly took to The Whale stage alongside the town’s other TD, Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris, for the May 12th launch of It Takes A Village, the Greystones initiative created by the principals of our eight primary schools as they became increasingly worried about the rise in mental health problems among their young pupils.

On the night, both Ministers were adamant that something had to be done. And given that each of these ambitious young politicians are in a position of power within the government, they were going to see that something was indeed done.

The most promising noises on the night came from Donnelly, who mentioned that €5m had been earmarked by the government for a pilot scheme for counsellors in primary schools across the country. He was planning to address the idea with Education department, and is still determined to bring St Patrick’s National School principal Rachel Harper along soon to discuss It Takes A Village’s suggestion.

Good news on this front arrived in the last few days, when Minister for Education Norma Foley announced primary schools across seven counties had been selected for “a landmark wellbeing” project. Wicklow wasn’t among the counties chosen, but then, neither was Foley’s native Cork. Hopes are high we’ll make round two…

That the announcement came so quickly after It Takes A Village finally came to fruition would suggest great minders thinking alike. The model being piloted has been recommended by the National Parents Council and the Ombudsman For Children, and will initially provide counselling to children in primary schools in collaboration with the National Educational Psychology Service. Later, a new type of role within the education system, a wellbeing practitioner, will be created, working with schools on early intervention and the promotion of health and happiness.

The hope being that, should the pilot scheme prove successful, it will be rolled out across the rest of the country.

With over a year’s preparation by Greystones’ eight primary schools to bring the idea of counsellors in primary schools to the table, here’s hoping that they don’t have to wait that long to see all their hard work finally result in heartier, healthier young kids walking through their gates each day.

In the meantime, we’ve emailed young Donnelly and younger Harris to get their insider takes on when that happy day might actually happen…