Principals sound the alarm on mental illness in primary school kids

“Children as young as prep and grade one are having such significant behavioural issues that whole classes of students are having to be removed because they are destroying the classroom,” says  Anne-Maree Kliman, president of the Victorian Principals Association.

“I have had students as young as grade two telling me they wanted to die.”

As the royal commission into Victoria’s mental health system begins community consultation sessions this week, Ms Kliman met with Education Minister James Merlino and urged him to dispatch mental health workers to primary schools and increase access to primary welfare officers.

Ms Kliman warned that it was too late to wait until children reached secondary school to treat them and there needed to be a greater focus on early prevention in primary schools.

“If we don’t deal with it when we start to see these signs, it is not until secondary school that you deal with these issues.”

A Victorian primary school principal, who wanted to remain anonymous, said anxiety was the biggest mental health issue facing his school.

“These students have highly aspirational parents who are heavily involved in their children's education and there is quite a lot of pressure on them,” he said.

He suspects social media and television is fuelling mental illness in children.

“I have seen self-harming in children as young as prep, grade one and two," he said.

“We are seeing our kids far more connected than they have ever been with devices in their hand, often unsupervised.”

The principal recently transferred from a disadvantaged state school to a more advantaged one – a move that cut off his access to one of Victoria's 800 primary welfare officers.

He said his previous primary welfare officer worked three days a week helping children deal with trauma, financial hardship and family breakdowns.

The demand for mental health treatments is just as great in his new school, he says.

It is estimated that one in seven Victorians between four and 17 has a mental health issue.

Half of all lifelong mental health problems are believed to begin before the age of 14.

Mr Merlino said the government was delivering and expanding  welfare and mental health support services in primary and secondary schools. "This includes additional psychologists, social workers, and more primary school nurses," he said.

"We are also supporting schools to offer improved mental health and suicide prevention support, through our Anti-Bullying and Mental Health Initiative, launched last year."

Beyond Blue chief executive Georgie Harman said poor mental health had a profound impact on a student’s academic performance.

“They are falling a year behind their peers in their ability to perform academically if they are not doing well mentally or psychologically,” she said.

Ms Harman said the organisation’s new Be You initiative provided free online training and resources to help primary, secondary and early learning teachers build resilience in children and respond to early signs of mental health issues.

These signs include students withdrawing from class and their friends, displaying disruptive behaviour and spending a lot of time alone.

“Our ethos is all about starting earlier because by the time they reach secondary school, a lot of this is embedded and it's harder to bounce back from,” Ms Harman said.

Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Meredith Peace said the union would also be writing a submission calling for primary school mental health support.

As part of a $51.2 million state Labor election pledge, mental health workers will be sent into every Victorian state secondary school.

The announcement followed the rollout of Labor’s doctors in secondary school program, which deployed GPs into 100 disadvantaged secondary schools across the state.

It’s understood that about 40 per cent of cases handled by these doctors involved students with mental health issues.

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