In youth boarding schools, there are people who see the children during hours when no other adult is there. Not the parents, who are at home. Not the teachers, who are in the teachers’ lounge. Not the counselor, who returns home at five.
The instructors.
They are there in the evening, at night, at Monday morning breakfast when a student returns from a weekend that was, clearly, not a normal weekend. They are the ones who see who is not sleeping, who is not eating, who goes outside alone a few too many times.
They are gatekeepers - but almost no one trains them as such
A study published in Frontiers in Public Health examined the mental state of students in boarding schools and found that instructors and nursing staff play a critical role in early identification - but that training tailored to this role is rare.
This is not surprising. Most gatekeeper trainings were built for classroom teachers, social workers, and medical staff. The boarding school is an entirely different environment: a living space, different trust relationships, physical proximity that has no equivalent in a regular school, and no return home at the end of the day - neither for the student nor for the instructor.
What characterizes these conversations
Conversations between an instructor and a student usually happen in the between: between activities, during a farewell at the end of the day, when an instructor enters to verify the light is off. They are not planned. They do not take place in a counselor’s office.
This is an advantage. It is also a challenge.
The advantage: A student who will not turn to anyone will want to talk to an instructor they trust - at 11 PM, when they are off duty.
The challenge: The instructor needs to know how to identify, to ask, and to stay - without stopping the conversation, without pushing, without turning a moment of trust into a moment of procedures.
What instructors report they need
In conversations with frontline professionals from youth boarding schools, two things arise again and again: First - they identify that something is wrong. Second - they do not know what to do with it. “I didn’t want to push.” “I thought maybe I was exaggerating.” “I didn’t know whether to report or to talk first.”
This is not a lack of desire. It is a lack of practice in those very seconds.
There is no script that covers all these conversations. But there is a skill that can be developed - asking an open question, sitting in silence, knowing when to talk and when to listen. A skill that is not built from a lecture, but from practice.