Buddy or Friendship Benches（长椅）are needed because playgrounds can be lonely places some times. When a school places the bench, they teach a little lesson to the kids on how it is to be used. Then when a child sits on the bench, it sends out a message to others that basic ally says, "Hey, I'm alone right now and would welcome the company（陪伴）of others." Kids in the playground see this and from their training, they see there is a fellow student in ne ed. They are encouraged to come over and sit on the bench and make a new friend.
Benches like this have been around for a while now in many schools. But in Ireland, they are trying to do something different with the m. This school in Cork in the south of Ireland is the 247th to get benches from a social organization called "Buddy Bench Ireland" that doesn't just provide schools with benches, but also runs special projects with trained child psychiatrists（精神病专家）. They use the bench as an opportunity to start conversations about mental health. They talk about the importance of knowing and understanding your feelings and those of others.
Judith Ashton, a co-founder of Buddy Bench Ireland said, "T he children need to understand what the bench is about, what it represents —friendship, understanding, listening to each other and the most important thing is that it's important to express feelings."
But do children really use the bench? It's a matter of great public concern. Sinead Mcgilloway from Maynooth University carried out a study and said, "We found that 40% of the children told us that they had actually used the benches at the time of the study. And over 90% said that they would talk to a child if that child was sitting on the bench. So, there's nothing to worry about."
Children's mental health and safety at school is increasingly a concern in many countries. I n Ireland, they're hoping these benches will no t only tackle problems like school violence and school bullying（校园暴力和校园欺凌）, but also give students the confidence to open up about t heir feelings.
