Hear from others using DEAL
Shimna Integrated College, Northern
Ireland
Delivering DEAL to 14-15 year olds
"I have the opportunity to deliver a 12-hour
Personal Development course to students aged 14-15, with curriculum
statements directly linked to managing emotional health.
"These lesson plans approach subjects that are difficult to talk
about, but for that very reason really need to be talked about.
They are well structured with lots of detailed instruction for the
teachers”
Clare McFadden, Head of Personal Development
I think it is an excellent
programme that addresses pertinent issues in an honest, direct way.
I teach personal development, but am also a fully qualified
counsellor, and it's my counsellor hat that really appreciates a
resource like this being made available.
DEAL had more than enough resources relevant
to the age group I work with. The hardest part was deciding what to
leave out as I didn’t have the time to teach the whole course.
How did you use
Samaritans DEAL programme, were there particular areas that
teachers / students found more useful than others?
I teach it twice a year. The first group
completed the programme Sept/Oct. I did an evaluation that received
positive results. I'm repeating the programme after Easter with the
other groups. I have also used Samaritans adverts in assemblies to
encourage people to come to school counselling.
How was it
beneficial to your students? What was their feedback to
you?
Students said that they valued the opportunity
to talk openly about relevant issues such as depression and
self-injury. These are real issues that often are ignored, and
talking about them helped to reduce the stigma of assuming that
we’re all supposed to cope and not get help regardless of what is
happening in our life, or how we feel.
Quotes from student
evaluation form:
‘I learnt how to listen’
‘I found talking about suicide, self-harm,
aggression etc helpful and I found hearing other peoples’ opinions
on the different topics interesting’
‘I found it helpful understanding ways of
dealing with problems’
‘I found it most helpful understanding
depression’
‘I found that talking about suicidal
problems has helped me to understand why people do it’
‘I found out that talking about a topic is
better than bottling it up’
‘It helps with perspective and getting the
facts straight’
‘I found learning about what to say to
people who are depressed was helpful’.
Eastbury Comprehensive (Barking)
Delivering DEAL to 15 year
olds
“DEAL is an excellent course for PSHE that
enables students to better understand themselves and their
emotions. The course encourages students to reflect on their own
and others emotions. With a ever greater focus in PSHE on emotional
literacy this course makes it easy to deliver”
Mark Semmens Head of Personal, Social and Health Development
What made you decide to work on emotional health issues
with your students?
The students I work with often have low
emotional intelligence and need help to understand how to manage
their emotions. This manifests itself in overly aggressive
confrontational behaviour and can make it difficult to teach the
students.
How did you use
Samaritans DEAL programme, were there particular areas that
teachers / students found more useful than others?
I used the first two lessons from pack A on
emotional literacy and body language. I then used the lessons from
pack B on depression and self harming. The lessons from pack B were
chosen on the basis of what the students had said they would most
like to study next.
How was it
beneficial to your students?
The students interacted with each other in a
more mature way during the lessons. They were encouraged to share
with others and the lessons have resulted in students offering more
of their own insights and ideas in the following lessons. It
also gave us a jumping off point to discuss anger in society and
how to deal with aggressive people.
Nottingham Local
Authority, England
Training School Nurses in
DEAL
Nottingham Local authority includes DEAL as
part of its training for School Nurses on emotional health and
wellbeing. Here is what School Nurses said about the programme.
"DEAL is such an informative resource as
it helps raise some very important issues”
"I found the introduction to DEAL on our
staff training about Emotional Health and Wellbeing in schools
really useful. It looks a very helpful resource"
"I like the combination of animation,
young people's views and lesson plans"
"As a trainer I found DEAL to be a
good way of raising awareness and also highlighting a really
excellent resource to use in schools"
Could you inspire others using
DEAL?
Email us here to become a Samaritans case
study
More information
Free lesson
plans and resources
Results of the pilot
Give
your views on DEAL