Telephone: 01369 705010

Established in 1641

Three years ago we as a school realised that there seemed to be a gap in our provision in terms of Mental Health and how we try and assist the pupils within the school. At this point we got in contact with See Me and asked if we could be a Pilot school for the whole of Scotland to try their new materials which aimed to reduce the stigma surrounding this area.

See Me am to reduce the stigma and discrimination surrounding us and they were looking for 6 schools across the country and luckily they decided that they would work with us. At this point Laura Sharp for See Me attended DGS and met with all the staff and explained the theory behind what we planned to do as a school.

Mr Reid from the school joined a steering group along with See Me volunteers and some other staff from around the country to look at materials and different campaigns that were going to be made available for our young people. These materials are now being used within DGS during our PSE lessons.

Every pupil and staff member in the school were issued with a What’s on Your Mind Card as this was aimed at ensuring that all members of the school community used the same common language when discussing Mental Health. It was also aimed at ensuring that staff in the school were more comfortable discussing mental health.

On the 1st December 2016 we were invited to attend a ‘Walk a Mile’ event held by SAMH in Edinburgh, which was hosted by Sir Chris Hoy. This event was aimed at increasing discussions surrounding mental health, we were lucky enough that 8 of our young people were able to attend this event and they had the opportunity to meet and discuss mental health with Sir Chris Hoy.

As a school we wanted to host an event to highlight the work that we do in terms of Mental Health and in May 2017, we decided to host our own ‘Walk a Mile’ event in Dunoon. We were lucky to have Chris McCullogh Young and Scottish Commonwealth Games Cyclist Rab Wardell. Both of these have had their own troubles with mental health. This event was our way of promoting the work that that we have done as a school and aimed at including the community as well.

This is just the beginning of our journey and we look to develop new ideas moving forward in future years as we see how important Mental Health is in the life of our Young People and Staff.