Seminar: Education, mental health and wellbeing: are the kids alright? Professor Neil Humphrey

Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change

Seminar Series

23rd May 2017 5.00 pm – 5.50 pm Reception in the Wolfson Medical School Building, Seminar 6.00pm – 7.30 pm in the Kelvin Building

 As places at the seminar are no longer available please note the presentation will be streamed live via the following link:

https://lectures.gla.ac.uk/ess/echo/presentation/3a5f461c-4411-4c6e-8388-63a8d606d651

We are in the midst of a potentially transformative moment, in which the critical intersection between education, mental health and wellbeing is finally being recognised in public policy.  All sectors of education are engaged in a debate that raises fundamental, challenging questions. Is there a crisis in mental health and wellbeing? If so, what is the role of education in resolving it? In this seminar I will examine key issues that underpin these questions, such as the differing ways in which mental health and wellbeing are conceptualised, assumed truths about evidence-based intervention in schools and other settings, the relationship between children’s academic attainment and their mental health, and what we know (and do not know) about changes in the prevalence of mental health difficulties among children and young people over time.  Finally, the implications of these issues for the Scottish Attainment Challenge will be explored.

Bio: Neil Humphrey is Head of the Manchester Institute of Education and Professor of Psychology and Education.  His research interests include social and emotional learning, mental health, and special educational needs.  Neil’s work in these areas has been supported by various funding bodies, including the National Institute for Health Research, Big Lottery Fund, and Education Endowment Foundation. He is the author of, “Social and Emotional Learning: A Critical Appraisal”, published by Sage.  Neil is a member of the ESRC mental health expert group and the children and young people’s research working group for the Department of Health’s 10-year strategy for mental health.  He is currently writing about developmental cascades (e.g. how are children’s mental health and their academic attainment related over time?) and the intersection between cumulative risk and protection in mental health (e.g. can access to multiple developmental assets moderate the effects of cumulative risk exposure on children’s mental health difficulties?).