Jigsaw's One Good School initiative launched at this popular Tipperary school

PICTURED ABOVE: At the St Ailbe’s One Good School launch were from left to right: Martin Quinn, Adam O’Connor, Nicole McLoughlin, Sabahat Ahmed, Stephen Quinn (past pupil), Molly Bargary, TJ Stokes, Edel Merrigan, Donal Breen and Ruaidhri Devitt

Jigsaw’s One Good School initiative was launched at St Ailbe’s School on Friday, September 23.

School principal Ruaidhri Devitt welcomed teacher and student representatives, past student Stephen Quinn, the One Good School team and Martin Quinn, to the launch of this action which supports the mental health and wellbeing of young people by developing a shared responsibility across the whole school community.

Mr Devitt outlined the details of the approach saying that schools play a vital role in promoting and supporting the mental health and wellbeing of young people and the many others within the school community.

"They can provide a safe and supportive environment for building life-skills, resilience and a strong sense of connectedness. Particularly during Covid we all got to see the importance of connectedness and connecting with other people and unfortunately we saw the downside of not being connected with others during that period.

"Fostering healthy relationships among peers, school staff and parents is critical to a young person’s overall experience of school and their social, emotional and cognitive development. The wellbeing of teachers, school leadership and school staff must also be considered and supported.

"Jigsaw’s One Good School is an initiative, which supports the mental health and wellbeing of young people by developing a shared responsibility across the whole school community.

"This shared responsibility is very important as the responsibility doesn’t just rest with myself or with the staff, it’s a shared responsibility by all in the school community," said Mr Devitt.

In the past ten years or more, there has been a growing level of attention on the importance of promoting and supporting mental health and wellbeing in schools. The Government has published a number of key national policy documents which identify schools as critical settings for contributing to student health and wellbeing.

Principal Devitt said that last year with the help of their One Good School Team, student representatives Molly, TJ and Adam, teacher representatives, Ms Merrigan, Mr Breen and Ms McLoughlin and parent representatives Sabahat and Bríd they surveyed the whole school population to see what type of initiatives run by Jigsaw would benefit them most.

"This year based on those answers, we will run a set of workshops and training for all our school population; students, teachers and parents, including such topics as managing exam stress, my mental health, what helps, let’s talk shur why not and let’s innovate for wellbeing.

"We hope that by promoting these initiatives we are creating a school environment and community where it is normal to talk and be open about our feelings.

"We need to promote the idea that it’s okay to talk about our feelings and it’s okay to have a day when you are not in good form and it’s okay to be upset about things.

"This is a normal part of life. I really hope that over the next 12 months that the school community grabs onto this opportunity and promotes this type of school that we all want to be part of going forward," concluded Mr Devitt.

Following the address by the principal, Mr Stephen Quinn was invited to raise the One Good School flag in the school grounds.