Catering for Mental Health and Stress Coping Mechanisms amongst Eleven- To -Fourteen-Year-Old Learners in Privately Owned Schools of Imbizo District in Bulawayo

This paper sought to assess the extent to which privately owned schools offer stress coping mechanisms and mental health awareness to learners who are preteenagers. There is often a misconception that children do not experience stress, however, literature review revealed that children do in fact experience stress. Children’s stressors may be different from those of adults and children’s ways of experiencing and describing what is happening to them may also be different in comparison to adults. Mixed research methods were used in the study issuing questionnaires which had both open and closed ended questionnaires and conducting interviews. The close ended questions allowed for frequencies of responses to be calculated, thus this brought in a quantitative element of research. The interviews/interview guides provided a deeper understanding of how schools offer coping. An interpretive paradigm was used to explain how learners experience stress and what schools are doing to ensure that their learners mental health and stress levels are being catered for. The target population was learners who are pre-teenagers, learning in Imbizo District. The sample method employed was simple random sampling, which meant all schools and their learners within the Imbizo District, had an equal chance of being selected. Ethical considerations of confidentiality, informed consent and anonymity were paramount during this study. The findings of the study revealed that there is a need for stress coping mechanisms and raising mental health awareness amongst learners. Two schools however, have introduced clubs, thus offering learners a stress coping mechanism. The research study recommended that schools direct mental health awareness campaigns to parents and teachers. There is also the recommendation to staff develop teachers and administrators on skills of identifying and accommodating learners who are going through stress or have mental health issues so as to provide the learners with the needed assistance at an early stage.