She also has grant funding related to this intervention from the National Institute of Health, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Institute of Education Sciences, the Children’s Trust, and the Batchelor Foundation. This project was supported by an Institute of Education Sciences grant (R305A220088) awarded to Jill-Ehrenreich-May and Sara M. St. George (Co-PIs). Notably, at least three different community member types contributed to all themes, with four of our seven themes generated with input from all community member types. We also exercised flexibility in the weekly frequency of sessions (starting with two sessions/week and tapering down to one session/week) and attempted make-up sessions for students who missed scheduled meetings.
Assessing the Evidence Base for School-Based Promotion and Prevention Interventions: Introduction to the Series
Similarly, assessing the effectiveness and acceptability of school-based interventions for depression and anxiety for those from culturally and linguistically diverse and LGBTQI + communities, is vital. It may be the case that targeted programs benefit from being delivered regularly across secondary school years, however, further research is needed to support this approach. The mixed and weaker effects for long-term effects for school-based programs overall may also be interpreted through a developmental lens, considering the rapid and significant changes that occur for adolescent over periods of one year or more. Results of the present overview showed that some reviews combining results for primary and secondary school settings reported positive results for universal programs, whereas reviews focused specifically on secondary school did not. The present overview offers a step in this direction, presenting the evidence from systematic reviews of majority secondary school-based research.
Promoting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing
Greater subsidies for school counselors led to reductions in behavioral problems but had no effect on standardized test scores. Similarly, changes in ADHD drug use have been shown to have no effect on academic outcomes. The randomized control trial in the Minneapolis Public Schools, mentioned above, found weak evidence for effects on suspensions or juvenile-justice involvement and no evidence for improvements in average attendance or standardized test scores. Mental illness is negatively correlated with educational attainment, and youth with special-education designations of emotional disturbance experience some of the poorest educational outcomes of any disability category. In a simpler world, psychiatric diagnosis was once based only on perceived clinical need. Cognitive behavioral therapy can improve school engagement and reduce criminal-justice involvement for youth with mental disorders.
- CK and GK conducted document review and interpretation.
- Future research and systematic reviews must consider the contextual and individual factors that can influence the implementation and effectiveness of school-based programs.
- Students with higher test scores had a lower probability to have emotional and behavioral problems , in comparison with students who failed examinations 93, 101.
- All these articles were entered into the Mendeley software for its screening and review.
- One example of a concrete adaptation was to change the language used in the program so that students with diverse backgrounds could be reached .
Although cognitive-behavioral interventions do not directly address social determinants of health, it was important for us to weave in examples throughout sessions that presented skills in the broader context of students’ daily lived experiences. For example, we acknowledged adaptive avoidance and limitations of cognitive-behavioral strategies such as “flexible thinking” and “opposite action” given the role of social determinants of health in shaping students’ daily lives and mental health. They cited both practical/logistical and attitudinal/cultural barriers as reasons to anticipate low parental engagement in school-based mental health services. Teachers collectively described the ideal mental health provider as someone who “needs to have the clinical skills and expertise,” is “part of the culture,” and more specifically, “somebody that’s experienced working with Black and Brown children.” School administrators reported that students would be less likely to engage in a program without a mental health provider who met these qualifications. The second strategy for building trust and reducing stigma involved taking a strengths-based approach when advertising and delivering a school-based mental health intervention.
This review looked at different targeted school-based interventions in the UK designed to help young people at risk of mental health difficulties or showing early signs of distress. In addition to education, schools provide opportunities for social, mental health, and physical health services that can help protect against negative outcomes. The identified gaps in the present review can inform future research including systematic reviews, as well as recommendations and guidance that can be the basis for improving youth mental health through school-based interventions. Findings are highly relevant to the development of recommendations for decision-makers about secondary school-based mental health programs, where guidance is currently limited and not always evidence-based. Where the evidence is limited, designers and facilitators should adapt school-based mental health programs according to https://www.thecommunityguide.org/findings/mental-health-multi-tiered-trauma-informed-school-programs-improve-mental-health-among-youth.html relevant guidelines and models to ensure culturally responsive practice (Yohannan & Carlson, 2019). At least one randomized controlled trial is currently underway focused on understanding the effectiveness of online app-based interventions for mental health delivered in secondary school settings, which will add to the evidence in this area (Werner-Seidler et al., 2020).