Promotion of social and emotional competence: Experiences from a mental health intervention applying a whole school approach (original) (raw)
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2011
Among younger people in many high-income countries, mental ill-health, which includes depression, aggressive behavior, feeling down, and alcohol and drug abuse, is one of the greatest health problems. Since most young people attend school, there are grounds for pursuing the prevention of ill-health in the educational arena. A set of techniques, named social and emotional learning (SEL), based on cognitive and behavioral methods, is available to teachers to train students to improve self-control, social competence, empathy, motivation and self-awareness. SEL programs have their underpinnings in the theories of cognitive development and social learning, and in application of the ideas of risk and protective factors. The primary aim of this dissertation is to describe and evaluate, in a real-life setting, the impacts of a Swedish program derived from SEL, called social and emotional training (SET), on various mental-health outcomes. Such programs have been shown to have favorable effects in the international literature, but have not been tested before in Sweden. Sub-aims were to investigate whether there were outcome differences between subgroups, and to assess the development of an instrument for the measurement of social emotional maturity. The evaluation was performed in two experimental and two control schools (41 and 20 classes, respectively) in Botkyrka Municipality in Greater Stockholm. A variety of statistical analyses were applied to the data collected: two repeated-measures cohort analyses, with rather different designs, to measure changes over two and five years; latent-class analysis to examine variability and substance use; and, latent growth curve modeling with full maximum likelihood estimation to scrutinize our earlier findings. On the social and emotional variables, the impact of SET was found to be generally favorable. After five years, the impact of SET was found to be greater for internalizing than for externalizing problems, but no impact on social skills was detected until a quadratic (curvilinear) model was fitted to the data. Weaknesses in SET implementation and in our research approach are highlighted and discussed under certain themes. Project experiences indicate needs for wide community involvement, and greater discipline in administration, and the benefit of using a variety of study designs and statistical approaches in the interpretation of results.
BMC Public Health, 2014
Background: Schools provide a natural context to promote children's mental health. However, there is a need for more evidence-based, high quality school intervention programs combined with an accurate evaluation of their general effectiveness and effectiveness of specific intervention methods. The aim of this paper is to present a study protocol of a cluster randomized controlled trial evaluating the "Together at School" intervention program. The intervention program is designed to promote social-emotional skills and mental health by utilizing whole-school approach and focuses on classroom curriculum, work environment of school staff, and parent-teacher collaboration methods. Methods/Design: The evaluation study examines the effects of the intervention on children's socio-emotional skills and mental health in a cluster randomized controlled trial design with 1) an intervention group and 2) an active control group. Altogether 79 primary school participated at baseline. A multi-informant setting involves the children themselves, their parents, and teachers. The primary outcomes are measured using parent and teacher ratings of children's socio-emotional skills and psychological problems measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Multisource Assessment of Social Competence Scale. Secondary outcomes for the children include emotional understanding, altruistic behavior, and executive functions (e.g. working memory, planning, and inhibition). Secondary outcomes for the teachers include ratings of e.g. school environment, teaching style and well-being. Secondary outcomes for both teachers and parents include e.g. emotional self-efficacy, child rearing practices, and teacher-parent collaboration. The data was collected at baseline (autumn 2013), 6 months after baseline, and will be collected also 18 months after baseline from the same participants.
Journal of Education and Learning, 2018
In the middle of the 20th century, there was a shift from a skills deficit approach to a positive approach, focused on promoting assets and individual strengths. The role of social-emotional competences became salient. School is a privileged arena for universal and selective prevention interventions that can help pupils in raising their competence to cope with life challenges in a relaxed, non-violent and effective way. Personal and social-emotional skills play a key role in children and adolescents’ development, as well as their behavior towards risk factors and there is a need to evidence-based interventions. The scale “For me it’s Easy” is an evaluation tool for personal and socio-emotional skills and was used to assess the effect of a Social and Emotional Skills Promotion Program. Personal and social skills play a key role in children and adolescents’ development, as well as their behavior towards risk factors. The study includes an intervention group with 960 Portuguese childre...
International Journal of Educational Research, 2018
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Health Promotion International, 2008
Mental ill-health is a major problem worldwide. It includes depression, aggressive behavior, feeling down and alcohol and drug abuse. Since all children go to school, the school is an obvious arena for health interventions. A set of educational techniques named Social and Emotional Learning, based on the use by teachers of cognitive and behavioral methods, which teaches students self-control, social competence, empathy, motivation and self-awareness, has shown promising results in the USA. This paper reports on the application of similar techniques in Sweden (the Social and Emotional Training [SET] program). The study has a quasi-experimental longitudinal design, with two intervention and two control schools. A wide range of instruments, both Swedish and international, are employed. In this paper, results from the school years 1999-2000 (baseline) through to 2001 -2002 are reported. Both the intervention and the data collection were performed by ordinary school staff in a routine school setting. Independent bi-annual ratings of teachers' performance were moderate to high, and teachers' perceptions of the program were generally, although by no means universally, high. However, their performance was poorer with regard to the collection of data. In terms of promotion, findings with regard to the impact of the program on mental health are generally favorable-in particular through the promotion of aspects of self-image, including well-being and the hindering of aggressiveness, bullying, attention-seeking and alcohol use. There was, however, no differential effect on social skills. It seems that SET has the potential to operate effectively as a health-promoting intervention during the school period, although its main impact may rather be to act as a brake on the deterioration in some aspects of mental health that is common during adolescence. Positively significant relationships were found on some but not all of the instrument scales, and effect sizes were medium.
Child Development, 2017
Social‐emotional competence is a critical factor to target with universal preventive interventions that are conducted in schools because the construct (a) associates with social, behavioral, and academic outcomes that are important for healthy development; (b) predicts important life outcomes in adulthood; (c) can be improved with feasible and cost‐effective interventions; and (d) plays a critical role in the behavior change process. This article reviews this research and what is known about effective intervention approaches. Based on that, an intervention model is proposed for how schools should enhance the social and emotional learning of students in order to promote resilience. Suggestions are also offered for how to support implementation of this intervention model at scale.
Frontiers in Education, 2018
Background: Research evidence suggests that a child's emotional, social and psychological well-being influences their future health, education and social prospects, and that positive, well-developed coping skills and high emotional literacy lead to improved self-esteem, reduced stress, and reduced incidence of serious emotional problems in later life. Children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are at a disadvantage as they tend to have lower levels of emotional literacy and may have limited opportunities or capacity to develop coping skills. Few targeted, evidence-based programmes aimed at improving emotional literacy and coping skills are currently available for use in SEND schools. Aims: To evaluate the effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility of the school-based mental health promotion programme Zippy's Friends in SEND schools. The study concentrated on the first three modules of the programme, implemented over the course of an academic year in a cohort of children and young people with SEND. Methods: Fifty-three children and young people attending eight SEND schools participated in the educational programme and study. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using standardized assessment scales, purposed-designed questionnaires, emotion recognition tasks and interviews to assess typical and maximal behavior of the children as well feedback on the programme. Data were collected from children, parents/guardians/care givers, and teachers before and after the intervention. The results of the qualitative data will be presented elsewhere. Results: Teachers' ratings indicated that the children's and young people's social skills, emotional literacy, and emotional recognition improved over the course of the study. Significant improvements were observed in teachers' ratings of communication, cooperation, assertion, responsibility, and self-awareness. Parental ratings did not change over time. Unwin et al. Mental Health Promotion: Special Schools Conclusions: This small-scale study indicates that the Zippy's Friends programme is feasible and may lead to improved emotional literacy. However, further research is needed that uses a comparison group to isolate the effects of the programme from factors such as age-related maturation, development, and usual school-based learning.
International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 2019
Short term experimental studies by DiPerna and colleagues have demonstrated the efficacy of the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS) to measure and improve the social skills and academic functioning of students from Preparatory year to Grade 3 and to decrease problem behaviours. This longitudinal school-led project applied the multi-tiered assessment and intervention components of the SSIS to achieve sustainable outcomes. In each of three project years up to 16 teachers completed the SSIS Performance Screening Guide for approximately 380 students, with nearly half having special needs. Students screened by their teachers as having low levels of prosocial behaviour were assessed using the comprehensive SSIS Rating Scale. The collective data informed the social skills goal priorities among 10 skills targeted and taught by classroom teachers using the SSIS Classwide Intervention Programme (CIP). Intervention effectiveness indicators included change in prosocial behaviour, academic achievement, problem behaviours, wellbeing, and attendance. Students showed marked improvement on all outcome indicators across the three project years, resulting in an improved school climate. Limitations to the evaluation are discussed, followed by recommendations for other schools to adopt similar interventions to achieve sustainable improvement in students' social skills and other outcomes, and school climate.