Introduction: Youth mental health issues are a growing public health concern. Resilience has been identified as a mitigating factor for adverse mental health outcomes. Schools have shown an increasing interest in strategies to support students’ mental health. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a school-based 1:1 health coaching program designed to build resilience by teaching students coping skills and strategies to increase their self-efficacy. Study Design: Single group intervention study with pre/post measures. Setting/Participants: Sixth grade students (aged 11-12 years) attending an urban middle school. Intervention: Youth participated in up to 6 resiliency-focused, 1:1 health coaching sessions completed over 8 weeks and conducted during the school day. Health coaches utilized motivational interviewing techniques to set and work toward resilience-related goals focused on improving coping skills and self-efficacy with youth during the intervention (January through March 2020). Main Outcome Measures: The Child and Youth Resilience Measure-Revised and other mental health assessments were completed at baseline and immediately following completion of the intervention to evaluate outcomes. Paired sample t-tests and Hedges’ g effect sizes were conducted to evaluate intervention effectiveness. Student participation rates were assessed throughout the intervention. Results: 287 youth participated in the study (87% participation rate) and participated in over 85% of health coaching sessions offered. A paired samples t-test revealed the youth resilience significantly increased from pre ( M = 75.7, SD = 6.9) to post ( M = 77.6, SD = 6.8) intervention ( t[257] = 3.73, p < .001) and the size of the effect was medium ( g = 0.29, 95% CI = 0.11, 0.46). Conclusions: The findings demonstrate that health coaching can be an effective strategy for improving resiliency in youth. Future studies evaluating how to effectively disseminate this intervention strategy are planned.

Background There is a growing prevalence of mental health disorders among youth. Helping youth develop skills that promote and support mental well-being is an important strategy for addressing this public health concern. Building Resilience for Healthy Kids (Healthy Kids) is a school-based program designed to improve resiliency in youth aged 9–13 years old using an innovative health coaching framework. Methods Healthy Kids is a multi-phased intervention that aims to improve youth resilience using a 6-week, 1:1 health coaching program. The program develops youth resilience and was derived from models for developing youth resilience: Positive Relationships, Coping, Skill Development, Healthy Lifestyle, Sense of Culture, and Connectedness. Effectiveness of the intervention will be evaluated using a single-group, pragmatic trial design with pretest-posttest and follow-up assessments up to 12 months. Process measures will evaluate youth's acceptance and satisfaction of the program and attendance rates. Effectiveness will be evaluated by examining changes in resilience and mental health indicators from pre-to-post program and tracking sustainment of changes in mental health indicators over time. Discussion Given the pragmatic nature of the study design to work with generally healthy populations of students, we expect small, but sustainable, improvements in youth resilience to be achieved through the intervention. Further, this study will provide insight into the potential effectiveness of using health coaching as a strategy to support and promote youth mental well-being in school settings. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04202913. Registered December 18, 2019.

Objective In response to the rise in mental health needs among youth, a school-based resilience intervention was implemented for sixth graders at an urban middle school. The goal of this analysis is to examine improvements in key mental health parameters among students who endorsed negative affectivity at baseline. Method A total of 285 11–12-year-olds (72% white, 18% Hispanic, 55% female) participated in a single-arm, non-randomized 6-week 1:1 school-based coaching intervention, Healthy Kids. Youth completed validated surveys at baseline and 6-week follow-up assessing depression/anxiety symptoms, bullying, self-efficacy, academic pressure, grit, and resilience. Participants were determined to have elevated negative affectivity if they reported mild-to-severe symptoms for both depression and anxiety symptoms. General linear models examined differences between groups for each mental health parameter, as well as change in outcomes from baseline to follow-up. Results A third of participants (38%) at baseline endorsed negative affectivity. Youth who endorsed negative affectivity were more often female (71% vs 29%; p < 0.001) and identified as victims of cyberbullying (25% vs 8%; p < 0.001). Youth with baseline negative affectivity scored lower for self-efficacy (total 70.5 vs 86.8; p < 0.0001). Baseline negative affectivity was a significant moderator for change in mental health parameters. Post-intervention, those who endorsed baseline negative affectivity, medium effect sizes were observed for self-efficacy ( g = 0.6; 95%CI 0.3, 0.9; p < 0.001) and anxiety symptoms ( g =  − 0.70; 95%CI − 1.0, − 0.4; p < 0.001). Among all youth, there were significant medium intervention effects in resilience ( g = 0.5; 95%CI 0.3, 0.7; p < 0.001) and self-efficacy ( g = 0.7; 95%CI 0.4, 0.9; p < 0.001). Conclusions A universal resiliency program may improve self-efficacy and symptoms of anxiety among youth experiencing negative affectivity, while improving resilience and self-efficacy among all youth. Our findings suggest a universal school-based coaching program benefits all youth, while also specifically targeting the needs of youth with negative affectivity who are most at risk for mental health concerns.

Purpose: To examine the role of sleep in a school-based resiliency intervention. Design: Single group feasibility study. Setting: Urban middle school Subjects: Sixth grade students Intervention: A total of 285, 11-12-year-old students (70% White, 18% Hispanic, 55% female) participated in the six-week 1:1 Healthy Kids intervention. Youth (n=248) completed electronic surveys at pre-post the 6-week study assessing mental health parameters and self-reported bed and wake time. Measures: Students were categorized as having insufficient sleep opportunity if they reported time in bed of <9 hours per night. Analysis: General linear models examined differences between groups for each mental health parameters pre-post study. Results: A third of participants (28%) were classified as having insufficient sleep opportunity. Youth with insufficient sleep were more often Hispanic (27% vs 16%; p<0.001) and were more often classified with both mild to severe depression and anxiety symptoms (55% vs 35%; p=0.004). The health coaching intervention was found to have a significant improvement on overall resilience and self-efficacy only among students who reported sufficient sleep, while no significant intervention effect was found for those students who reported insufficient sleep. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that youth with poor sleep health may not benefit from school-based resiliency interventions.

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