Mental health screening in Australian schools makes a difference

As we examine the Australian Government's commitment to ensuring all students and school staff are safe from bullying and violence via the Anti-Bullying Rapid Review, a fundamental question emerges.

How do we move beyond reactive measures to create genuinely proactive, evidence-based approaches that seek to understand and address the harmful experiences impacting our young people and our schools?

Bullying remains a serious and persistent issue across Australian schools, affecting the wellbeing, safety and educational outcomes of thousands of students. Further, when young people struggle with unaddressed mental health concerns, the entire school ecosystem is affected.

Students experiencing emotional difficulties are more likely to engage in or become targets of bullying behaviours, creating cycles of harm that ripple through classroom dynamics, peer relationships and school culture.

Despite a range of existing policies and programs, there is currently no consistent national approach for how schools respond to bullying.

Traditional anti-bullying strategies often focus on consequences after incidents occur. While important, this reactive approach misses the opportunity to address underlying factors that contribute to harmful behaviours.

Systematic and proactive mental health check-ins offer a different approach. They identify students in need of support before problems escalate, provides practical resources to learn more and intervene early, and facilitates crucial conversations between schools, students and families.

An evidence-based solution at scale

My Mind Check, a free mental health check-in tool, offers an evidence-based, tested model for the proactive identification of peer victimisation, along with critical mental health risk factors and protective strengths that influence risk for, and impact of, the experience of bullying.

Peer victimisation measurement
My Mind Check incorporates validated measures of peer victimisation that enable schools to:
• identify students experiencing various forms of victimisation, including experiences of cyber bullying
• understand prevalence rates within specific school communities
• track changes in victimisation experiences over time
• connect students with appropriate support resources.

In the school context, where behaviour management is understandably a focus, proactive identification efforts are especially important to consider as a critical element of a school’s response to bullying. They ensure those experiencing victimisation, who are more likely to fly under the radar, are afforded the opportunity for support.

The foundational BEACON research, recently published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, demonstrated the effectiveness of systematic school-based mental health and wellbeing screening involving over 10,000 Australian students. The early identification screening included the experience of peer victimisation. Key findings from schools who completed the screening and follow-up guidelines include:

• 20 per cent reduction in students reporting emotional difficulties after one year
• 30 per cent increase in school attendance rates.

The research findings validate what many educators have long suspected: systematic, proactive screening approaches can dramatically improve both individual and community outcomes.

And these outcomes matter for bullying prevention. When students feel supported, understood, and equipped with appropriate coping strategies, they are less likely to engage in harmful behaviours towards others.

Similarly, students who receive early intervention for mental health concerns are better positioned to seek help when they experience bullying, breaking the silence that often perpetuates these harmful dynamics.

Dr. John Burns, a former school psychologist with 25 years of experience and author of The No-Nonsense Guide to Mental Health in Schools, has seen firsthand how mental health challenges can go unnoticed in schools.  

"Young people often don’t know where to get help; they don’t have knowledge or resources to seek timely support,” he said. "Schools are a natural environment for young people – it’s where they spend most of their time.

“Screening in schools allows us to be proactive about identifying issues early, rather than waiting for problems to escalate later in life. It doesn’t have to be onerous or time-consuming, and it must always be voluntary, with informed consent.

“It’s about giving them a voice and ensuring they feel heard while also equipping educators with the tools to act.” 

2026 wellbeing planning

Less than one year after launching My Mind Check, more than 180 schools, 25,000-plus students, and more than 2,100 staff members across all Australian states and territories are already benefiting from this evidence-based mental health platform.

This includes government, Catholic and independent schools spanning primary, secondary, and combined educational settings with particularly strong representation in regional and remote areas where professional mental health services are often scarce.

Join the growing list of schools today. Enquire now to book a demo meeting to see how My Mind Check works. My Mind Check is completely free for Australian schools.

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