Throughout more than thirty years’ experience as an educational psychologist Sue Morris has held a particular academic and professional interest in the mental health of children and young people. Like many practising educational psychologists, Sue has welcomed recent developments in national policy which have positioned educational constructs of ‘maladjustment’, ‘emotional and behavioural difficulties’ and ‘behavioural, emotional and social difficulties’ within a more ecologically-oriented conceptualisation of individual differences, and acknowledged more fully the role of risk and protective influences in children’s lives on their subjective, and externally assessed well-being. Similarly, she have welcomed the (long overdue!) focus on the prevention of mental health disorders / mental distress in childhood and adolescence, and the increased understanding of the role of schools and other settings in contributing to mental health promotion and / or demotion. In Sue’s own research and professional practice and that of the students whose work she supports through the medium of supervision, evidence of wholly preventable risks in the lives of young people is considerable, as are indications that the preventive aims of community psychology and multi-agency working can be hampered by a continuing dominance of medicalised, pathology-oriented interpretations placed on children’s atypical or ‘challenging’ behaviour. |
BoI 2007 Vox Pop 10
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