<p>Mental health stigma is associated with reduced help-seeking, loss of hope, and negative impacts on self-esteem, and schools have the potential to address both the internalised shame experienced by children, young people, and families, and the public stigma and discrimination they encounter more broadly. Schools occupy a unique position to influence attitudes early, working with students directly while also reaching families and broader school communities through their networks.</p>

<p>School programs that combine mental health education with direct contact with people who have lived experience have been found to be most effective in combating stigma, promoting empathy and understanding, and improving mental health understanding among students. Incorporating lived experience creates a more supportive social climate and has been found to encourage help-seeking behaviours in students. This builds on the contact-based and educational approaches detailed in the "Three Approaches to Stigma Reduction Initiatives" brief, applying them specifically to the school context.</p>

<p>People with lived experience of mental ill-health, and carer, family, and kinship group members, consistently identify schools as playing an important role in reducing stigma and supporting young people's mental health. Priorities shared by people with lived experience include increasing mental health literacy and knowledge in school students, taught using lived experience, and better equipping schools to deal with mental health issues. These priorities reflect a desire for young people to feel less alone and for stigma associated with mental health challenges to be reduced.</p>

<p>Reducing the impact of mental health stigma on students requires preparing the whole school community — including teachers and staff, parents and carers, and students themselves — and accounting for social and cultural contexts. The brief notes that much of the preparedness and delivery responsibility rests with teachers and staff, and that providing education to both school staff and families before delivering school-based anti-stigma education is likely to strengthen the environment for students. While models exist for storytelling as a contact-based intervention and for education and awareness campaigns, implementation pathways to scalability specifically within schools require further development.</p>

<p>Practical implementation pathways are identified across system, teacher and school community, parent and carer, and student levels to support stigma reduction in schools. At the system level, recommendations include State and Territory Departments of Education collating evidence-informed, culturally responsive stigma reduction resources and developing school-specific implementation guidelines, drawing on existing resources such as Victoria's Mental Health Menu and ACT-based programs. At the teacher and school community level, recommendations include training in discussing mental health, supporting individual students (e.g., the Berry Street Education Model), and improving the whole-school environment to be psychologically safe and trauma-informed (e.g., Be You resources). For parents and carers, recommendations include promoting attendance at aligned information sessions and supporting access to trusted online resources such as Reachout. For students, recommendations include involving them in implementation planning and feedback, providing in-person education with accessible online follow-up materials, and contact-based interventions such as Batyr@school, which includes a focus on recovery and story-sharing for students in years 9–12.</p>