Fostering the wellbeing of students with challenging behaviour and/or emotional needs through Acceptance Commitment Therapy and Outdoor Learning (original) (raw)
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With high rates of psychological distress reported amongst children internationally, the development and evaluation of new program initiatives is critical in order to meet the challenge of this burgeoning issue. Both acceptance and commitment therapy and adventure therapy are emerging as popular strategies to elevate psychological wellbeing. This small-scale program evaluation focuses on nine upper primary school-aged children enrolled in a specialist school in Australia for children with challenging behavior and/or emotional needs. Participants completed a newly developed 8-week intervention entitled 'ACT in the Outdoors' which combined key principles of both acceptance and commitment therapy and adventure therapy. The program was evaluated via a combination of pre and post participant psychological measures, and post interviews with participants and teachers. The results of this small-scale preliminary evaluation suggest that a portion of the participating children reported improvements in psychological wellbeing and skill development. Improvements appear to be mitigated by attendance and level of psychological wellbeing upon program entry. Based on this premise, the results suggest that more research is warranted to further understand the potential benefit of this innovative interdisciplinary approach.
Journal of school psychology, 2016
To date, most early intervention programs have been based on emotion regulation strategies that address dysfunctional cognitive appraisals, problem-solving skills, and rumination. Another emotion regulation strategy, 'acceptance' training, has largely been overlooked. To examine the efficacy of this strategy, a school-based mental health program combining positive psychology with acceptance and commitment therapy (Strong Minds) was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial with a sample of 267 Year 10 and 11 high-school students in Sydney, Australia. Mixed models for repeated measures examined whether the program led to reductions in symptoms amongst students who commenced the program with high depression, anxiety, and stress scores, and increased wellbeing scores amongst all students. Results demonstrated that compared to controls, participants in the Strong Minds condition with elevated symptom scores (n=63) reported significant reductions in depression (p=.047), stress (...
Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2014
Depression, anxiety and stress are common problems among adolescents. Teaching young people coping strategies in school-based intervention programs is one promising approach hoped to remedy the negative consequences of distress in adolescence. The aim of the two pilot studies was to examine the effect of a brief intervention based on the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on depressive symptomatology (Australian study, N = 66) and stress (Swedish study, N = 32) among adolescents screened for psychosocial problems in school settings. In both studies, subjects were assigned to receive the ACT-group-intervention, or a control intervention featuring individual support from the school health care. The Australian study was a planned comparison, with random allocation for girls, plus one replication of a boys group. The Swedish study used a randomized controlled design. The ACT-intervention was an 8-session manualized group program. The Australian study showed significant reductions in depressive symptoms with a large effect, and significant reductions in psychological inflexibility with a medium effect when compared to the control group who received standard care. In the Swedish study, the ACT-intervention group, when compared to the control group, reported significantly lower levels of stress with a large effect size, and marginally significant decrease of anxiety, and marginally significant increased mindfulness skills. Taken together, the ACTintervention seems to be a promising intervention for reducing stress and depressive symptoms among young adolescents in school and should be tested in full-sized studies. Limitations of these two pilots include small samples.
Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of an abbreviated, classroom-based, teacher-taught Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) program as an intervention to improve mental health in adolescents. In a group-randomized controlled trial, students (N = 586, age 14–21) were nested within 34 classes, which were in turn nested within 14 schools. Individual classes were randomly assigned to either a four-session ACT program or a usualcurriculum control condition. Students were assessed using questionnaires at pre- and post-treatment, and a 12-month follow- up. Questionnaires assessed quality of life, internalizing and externalizing problems, thought and attention problems, and psychological inflexibility. Hierarchical linear modeling showed no significant improvements on any of the outcome measures compared with the control group. No substantive effect sizes for ACT across time were observed. These findings failed to support ACT in the format that was used in this current study, which was as an abbreviated, classroom-based, teacher-taught program to improve mental health for all students. We had a large sample and many outcome variables, but failed to find any statistically significant effects or substantive effect sizes. In this study, ACT was delivered by teachers as opposed to mental health professionals, so it is possible that professionally trained therapists are needed for ACT to be efficacious. Keywords Acceptance and commitment therapy . ACT . School-based prevention . Adolescence . Mental health
NOUN Journal of Education (NJE), 2019
The study investigated the use of systematic approach therapy in changing the attitude responses of primary school pupils with school adjustment challenges. Ex-post facto experimental research design was adopted for the study with 33 pupils' with school adjustment challenges, identified through School Adjustment Attitudes Response Scale and another randomly selected 33 pupils from the same school who are without school adjustment challenges. The pupils age range from 7 to 9 years. School Adjustment Attitude Response scale, SAARS was used to collect data for the study. The results indicated a significant difference in the two group, pupils with and without school adjustment challenges attitude responses (t >0.05, t > 3.85), and effectiveness of systematic approach therapy intervention was recorded following analysis of four weeks pre-test and post-test responses of primary school pupils with school adjustment challenges exposed to five weeks treatment intervention (t >0.05, t > 0.74). The study recommended that school counsellors, psychologists and primary school managers should identify and integrate pupil's attitudes into designing treatment intervention for assisting primary school pupils toward favourable adjustment to school demands and that when considering treatment intervention, systematic approach therapy may be consider in treating primary school pupils' with school adjustment challenges.
Purposeful Outdoor Learning Empowers Children to Deal with School Transitions
Sports
UK schoolchildren are vulnerable to transitional stress between primary and secondary school, which may impact negatively upon their psychological health and academic achievement. This is experienced most acutely by children from ethnic minorities and lower socio-economic status (SES) households. Outdoor Adventure (OA) residential programmes are purported to develop behavioural adaptations which enable positive educational transitions of children. Personal, social and academic skills (self-reliance, getting along with others, curriculum alignment) may be best acquired through bespoke nature-based residential OA programmes. A mixed methods study evaluated the efficacy of a bespoke OA programme for developing school children’s psychological well-being and self-determination during their transition into secondary school. Participants were representantives of ethnic minorities and lower SES groups. A bespoke OA residential programme achieved the strongest scale of change in children’s p...
School Mental Health
Mindfulness-informed school-based mental health curricula show much promise in cultivating a positive school climate which supports the well-being and mental health of pupils and staff. However, non-positive pupil outcomes and experiences of school-based mental health interventions are often under-recognised and under-reported. This study sought to capture non-positive pupil experiences of a popular mindfulness-informed curriculum. Some pupils across all schools in the study described non-positive experiences, including having troubling thoughts and emotions, and not finding the programme effective. Contexts surrounding these experiences are explored and linked to existing literature, and subsequent recommendations for improvements are made, including the importance of having clear programme structure, definitions and aims, acknowledging and accommodating fidelity issues as best as possible, and better highlighting the potential for non-positive experiences and how they may be reduced.
Adolescent Psychiatry, 2018
In academic settings, fear of failure and associated emotional difficulties are common and often result in maladaptive behaviours, which often lead to failure or lowered scholastic achievement. Higher levels of self-esteem and resilience have been shown to protect against fear of failure and emotional difficulties, and predict improved academic outcomes in students. However, few studies have investigated the efficacy of group intervention methods aimed at improving self-esteem and resilience. This non-randomised universal intervention represents the first Australian study of the efficacy of a group Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) treatment program within high schools, aimed at increasing student self-esteem and resilience, and decreasing fear of failure and emotional difficulties. The EFT intervention groups (N = 204) were drawn from two different school cohorts. Results showed a significant improvement in fear of failure, whereby fears were significantly lower from pre-intervention to 12-month follow-up. Findings also indicated a significant main effect of time for emotional and behavioural difficulties, however post hoc tests indicated no statistically significant changes between the time points measured. No significant changes were observed in measures of self-esteem or resilience. The results suggested that EFT might be an effective group intervention for some students decreasing their fear of failure; however, further research is required.
Frontiers in Education
BackgroundOver the last decade there has been increased recognition about the role of school staff in preventing mental ill health and promoting wellbeing in young people. Despite this, information regarding the long-term benefits of school mental health programs is not widely available.AimsThe aim of this systematic review was to synthesize the evidence for school-based mental health and wellbeing programs which are available in Australia and have been shown to have long-term benefits for children and adolescents.ResultsThis systematic review of the literature identified 74 articles reporting long-term outcomes for student mental health and wellbeing, distributed across 29 unique programs. Common features of efficacious programs included cognitive behavioral interventions, mental health literacy, and social-emotional skills programs.ConclusionsSome of the identified school-based interventions for student mental health and wellbeing demonstrated long-term positive impacts on student...