Users who need support with mental health difficulties
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'Mental health is more than the state of our mind; it is about emotional resilience, self-esteem and confidence. It affects our ability to communicate, to build and sustain relationships, to learn and work, and to achieve our potential and aspirations,' (NIACE Mental Health Matters for FE Teachers Toolkit, 2010).
For those involved in supporting users with mental health difficulties there is often no obvious sign that a person is having difficulties and in some instances what is happening may not be that obvious to the user themselves. Symptoms can manifest themselves in a variety of ways which might include anxiety, panic, disorientation, and increased elation or sadness. Some of these may or may not be due to the side effects of medication and some of these may be severe enough to affect attendance on a course.
- 1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year.
- Only 1 in 10 prisoners has no mental disorder.
- About 10% of children have a mental health problem at any one time.
- Mixed anxiety and depression is the most common mental disorder in Britain.
Therefore there is a very high probability that anyone involved in supporting users will encounter a person who has mental health difficulties. It is also possible that the user may have another disability.
Memory and concentration can be affected and using technology in an agile and flexible way will help users with concentration problems and also be of benefit to staff involved in supporting them. For continuity it is important that resources are available outside the formal setting. Concentration issues can become less significant when information or learning can be revisited.
JISC Techdis resources include:
- Guidance for users on simple ways of adapting resources; for example some users may concentrate more easily on an audio or mind map version of a document than the document itself;
- Guidance on creating engaging learning resources using simple technologies;
- Signposts to free and Open Source software tools that allow alternative ways of presenting information and engaging or assessing learners.
