Lay summary
In New Zealand, 25% to 50% of high school students engage in self-harm each year. These young people are at increased risk of suicide. Mostly they don’t seek help from a hospital or mental health service, preferring to get support from adults who are accessible to them, including school staff. Unfortunately, school staff feel overwhelmed and ill-equipped to meet student needs.
Our team has co-designed evidence-based guidelines to support school staff to respond appropriately to student self-harm. However, we know that guidelines won’t be adopted by schools without robust implementation. This grant will be used to build relationships with stakeholders in two secondary schools and local child and adolescent mental health services. We will spend time at each site using ethnographic methods and facilitate a co-design hui generating strategies to address barriers to guidelines adoption. An HRC Project Grant to evaluate implementation of the guidelines in schools will follow.