‘Kindness is hardcore’

Our relationships matter to us: we are social creatures. So why, asked Professor Robin Banerjee, do we still 'fall into the trap' in schools, and in workplaces with adults, of individualising mental health?

Too often, Banerjee argued, mental health difficulties are seen as a property of a pupil – 'Which kids have got problems and how can we fix those kids' – rather than as embedded in relationships. 'If we don't understand the relational dynamics, we don't understand the mental health issues. There's an important step forward when you take that thinking. Academic engagement and achievement outcomes get understood in a different way. It's not good enough to say "Never mind what's going on with you socially, we've got to get through this Maths workbook". We have to notice all the behaviour, notice the kids who have withdrawn.'

Banerjee's longitudinal research finds that early social understanding – using measures of Theory of Mind, such as through situations involving a faux pas – is a predictor of more prosocial behaviour. This in turn leads to lower peer rejection and greater peer acceptance.

Conversely, early peer rejection leads to difficulties with social understanding, and more peer rejection.

It's important to 'shine a light' on these mechanisms, Banerjee says, because they are 'intimately connected with the academic profile as well'. We need each other, perhaps more than ever in post-pandemic education. Our connections matter. Yet Banerjee still encounters teachers who might say 'I just don't have time for this feelings stuff… I've got to get through my history syllabus'. (Banerjee noted that at the same time, that teacher was saying he was spending 50 per cent of his time trying to control the class.)

That's perhaps because, Banerjee said, it's really only in the last 30 or 40 years that we've devoted concentrated attention to how social and emotional learning carries on beyond the early years. Now we know that through intervention you can make a difference to social understanding. Indeed, a 2011 meta analysis from Joseph Durlak and colleagues found that school-based SEL programmes show significant improvements on social and emotional skills, attitude about self, others and school, behaviour, conduct problems, and achievement scores.

Interventions are usually based on conversation: talking about mental states. But a whole-school universal approach to Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) is important. A positive social and emotional school ethos leads to higher attainment results, positive social experiences, and lower persistent absence.

And there has been real progress. Banerjee has been advising the Welsh Government, who have completely overhauled the national curriculum. Launched in September 2022, it now has health and wellbeing, and expressive arts, sitting in the core of school business.

Banerjee has also taken this forward in work with mental health support teams, again taking a whole school approach. 'Mental health is everyone's business.'

Underpinning much of Banerjee's work is kindness. A focus group study with Jessica Cotney found that adolescents understood the importance and impact of kindness, felt it was complicated / tough, and appreciated the positive impact on the giver of the kindness as well as the recipient. Banerjee also referred to the work with BBC Radio 4 and Claudia Hammond (hosting this talk). 'It has really connected with people', he said, across social work, education, healthcare, politics, international aid, business and more. 'Very often we don't pay much attention to kindness. It's not seen as core. I want to say that kindness is hardcore: it's fundamental to our existence.'

Creating a kind culture is, Banerjee acknowledged, not a straightforward thing. 'We have an intuitive understanding of what kindness means, but we need to pay attention to it in a disciplined way.' For example, Banerjee's research shows that receiving kindness is related to wellbeing, but so is giving kindness, and so is seeing/noticing kindness. He ended with a call to work in partnership, with whole-school communities, to reflect on and support a culture of compassion to self and others.