Girls, self-harm and suicide prevention in schools

In England, as elsewhere, one response to concern about the mental health of school-aged young people has been the emergence of government policies and programming which position schools as vital settings for mental health promotion and suicide prevention work. Much of the existing research in this area has focused on programme impact and effectiveness (often using quantitative methods), with little attention so far given to the qualitative experiences of pupils with complex mental health needs who have engaged in self-harm and have attempted suicide. To address this lacuna, this paper reports semi-structured interview data on the lived experiences of nine adolescent girls (aged 14–16) from one secondary school in north-west England who were known to engage in self-harm behaviours, and some of whom had attempted suicide. Their teacher (also the school’s senior mental health lead and member of its senior leadership team) was also interviewed. The article explores three key themes: (i) Education, mental health, suicide prevention and the challenge of reconciling competing priorities; (ii) School-based mental health and suicide prevention support: great expectations with limited resource; and (iii) The unintended consequences of school-based mental health and suicide prevention work. It concludes that for pupils with complex mental health problems, the policy expectation that schools will promote mental health and help prevent suicide appears to have resulted in a series of unintended and contradictory outcomes which, it seems reasonable to suggest, are neither intended nor welcomed by government, or indeed by teachers, schools, pupils and their families.