Mainstreaming Psychosocial Care and Support: Within the Education Sector and Teacher Training Guide

Through this series, REPSSI strives to publish high-quality, user-friendly, evidence-based manuals and guidelines, all characterised by subject matter that can be said to address the issue of psychosocial wellbeing. Within the series, different publications are aimed at different levels of audience or user. This audience includes: 1) community workers, 2) a variety of social actors whose work is not explicitly psychosocial in nature, but in which it is felt to be crucial to raise awareness around psychosocial issues, 3) caregivers, parents, youth and children, 4) specialised psychosocial and mental health practitioners. Apart from formal impact assessments, towards further developing the evidence base for our tools and approaches, we welcome user feedback around our materials.

This guide was written for educators at schools and in the broader community. It also aims to reach other members of the school community such as head teachers, Ministries of Education (district and provincial), members of parent-teacher associations, governing bodies, school management teams, representative council for learners, school counsellors, teachers’ unions and parents/caregivers - in other words, all stakeholders interested in the wellbeing of learners.

These guidelines are designed to offer education stakeholders the sort of information that will enable them to recognise the vital importance of mainstreaming PSS in schools as well as assist them in their process of transforming their schools into centres of care and support