Learning through sport - Play with Purpose

  Including mental health education into the broader framework of health literacy development through curriculum in primary/elementary schools is essential. When we think about health literacy in schools, traditional topics like nutrition, physical exercise, and dental hygiene often dominate the curriculum. However, health literacy is incomplete without treating mental wellbeing with the exact same importance as physical health.  Mental health education provides young people with the practical knowledge, skills and understanding to monitor and direct the social and emotional self, and to undertsand that mental ill-health can carry a high lifetime pervasiveness. Begining early in the curriculum, mental health education establishes mental health maintenance as a ‘standard component’ of one’s overall health literacy and thus ability to maintain wellbeing. With research showing that adolescent and adult mental health disorder antecdents often begin in childhood (Kessler et al., ...