Awareness of risk factors is essential because it helps us to keep an eye on these children as adults around this children, both in school environment or at home, or even in the community, it helps us to be able to, you know, pick up when a child is experiencing mental health issues. So the factors that I'm going to be discussing about I'm going to be in four categories. And these are factors that put a child at risk of developing mental issues. And these are going to be personal factors, social factors, school factors, and family factors. Personal factors have to do with the child themselves. This is personal characteristics for For example, some children are overly anxious.

Now, if we are with a child is awfully anxious in a school setting. In the classroom, what we do have to do is adopt the activities to suit this child at home, if we know that this child is overly anxious or fearful, then we don't have to challenge them with, you know, activities or whatever it is that its traditions that will aggravate their anxiety. Now, some children are also non compliant, they just don't want to comply at all. And, you know, this is the person that they are knowing that they're non compliant means that we don't have to put up with unnecessary conclusions or assumptions when we think that they're, you know, misbehaving or they're displaying undesirable behaviors. Children also have learning disabilities or learning difficulties. I've worked with, you know, children who, you know, I have I have learning disabilities and they can't read well or They're quite slow in depth problem solving.

Being aware of that is important, because when we are aware of that we again, adopt activities to suit them. We again avoid anything that will aggravate mental problems. Some children have attachment. And if we know that the child has poor attachment, for instance, children who are looked after who are in care, this children, you know, have have gone through so much, it's most likely that they'll have attachment issues. And if they do have attachment issues, and we have some knowledge about attachment, then we have to do whatever we can to ensure that we don't put them at risk of you know, suffering mental health crisis. Because something could happen, we could do something we could engage them in some activity that could lead to mental health breakdown.

Let's go to social media. social factors could also put children at risk. For instance, children could be rejected by their peers. And if we lost the children, a child is being rejected by their peers. You know, say for instance, I've had a situation where, you know, a child has been, you know, rejected by friends in the sense that every time that she walked to them, they would walk away. This particular child I'm talking about it was reported to me, oh, by student mentor.

And this channel every time she would walk them during lunchtime, sit on the tapes in this table with them. They would walk away that is a sign of rejection. So this mentor was very good. You know, she was concerned she came to me and say, This is what is happening. We have investigate, and indeed, this child was being isolated. So we need to be aware of risk factors, you know, of such a nature.

Also, children could be bullied or they bully others. Children who bully others have problems themselves. And it's also important that they're looked after they're given the support that they need, because it's most likely that they're trying to cope cope with something and children who are bullied also need help. So, that is the social factors that would, you know, put children at risk of mental health issues. Now, if we did the family, we would find that some families out inconsistent supervision, they cannot supervise the children well, because of that children's needs are not met. If we are aware of that, then we have to really keep an eye on that.

Some families lack warmth or affection. It could be a cultural thing. In some cultures, there was no warmth there is love. There is no affection in some cultures Boys are not shown affection, we need to be aware of that. And when we see that a child is trying to bring up some soul and display the symptoms of the need for affection, then that is indicative of, you know, a risk to mental health problems or issues. Now, unfortunately some children are raised around substance misuse.

And if that is the case, then we need to take the necessary steps to say that this environment that the children have been raised No, the child has been raised and does not affect their mental health. That also applies to family violence and domestic violence. It affects children greatly. I've worked with children who have been affected by domestic violence in the home. I've worked with adults who were victims of domestic violence at a very early age and they grew up in this family where the parents in sport everyday and you know, there was quite a lot of violence. And when they grew up, they grew up with, you know, this sort of fear, the lack of trust, and that eventually affected them as they, you know, as adults, and they ended up on my caseload.

So we need to be aware of this factors. And another thing as well, this is, you know, specifically for parents, the school factors, school could make up a risk factor as well, where they don't have good vision, there is no good management child could be bullied and nobody knows about it. A child could be ill could not be performing well could be going through issues. And you know, the teachers do not pick it up the frontline staff. Do not pick up, you know, such difficulties that the child could be going through as a parent. You have to be tuned in and be able to get that help for your child.

If you're not that there is a problem. And that is coming from school, then contact the school and let the school know, attend the child could be struggling academically. Now I had this child that was referred to me because they were struggling academically. But that wasn't the reason they were referred to me. They were referred to me because they were displaying unwanted behaviors. But that is a way that the child was copying.

Now, the teachers did not know that the land support team did not know that the teaching assistants didn't know that they just thought the child was displaying an unhelpful behaviors or was engaging in unhelpful behaviors. But after having a good chat with the child, you know, the child disclosed that they were not performing as they wanted, but nobody had picked up on that. Parents have not picked up on that. And the dishes were not concerned, but academic failure was the main problem in this particular case. So as a parent, you have to be aware of that. As a teacher, you have to know that if a child has been performing well, and all of a sudden you start noticing that they're not perform well academically, then you have to do something about it.

Now, some children have issues with attachment, as I have mentioned before, and could be a personal issue personal factor, but where they're not attached more with a school or school staff, that is a concern. And something has to be done about it. If you not, as you know, as as a teacher or frontline staff, or, you know, working with this child, and you're not that the child is not attaching Well, that is, you know, a factor that you should not overlook. You have to investigate and get help for this child. Because this child is most likely to be suffering from something or experiencing something that is not good, but it's not, you know, putting them in it. Position of good mental health.

So those are the factors that we need to look out for