Background:The acquisition of social and emotional skills is associated with positive youth development, character education, healthy lifestyle behaviours, reduction in depression and anxiety, conduct disorders, violence, bullying, conflict, and anger. School-based interventions aimed to enhance these skills go beyond a problem-focused approach to embrace a more positive view of health; they could also improve the youth’s wellbeing.Aim:To describe the main features and to establish the effectiveness of universal school-based RCTs for children and the youth, aimed to promote their psychosocial wellbeing, positive development, healthy lifestyle behaviours and/or academic performance by improving their emotional and social skills.Methods:Systematic review by searching for relevant papers in PubMed/Medline with the following key words: “mental health” OR “wellbeing” OR “health promotion” OR “emotional learning” OR “social learning” OR “emotional and social learning” OR “positive youth development” OR “life skills” OR “life skills training” AND “school”. Interval was set from January 2000 to April 2014.Results:1,984 papers were identified through the search. Out of them 22 RCTs were included. While most interventions were characterized by a whole-school approach and SAFE practices, few studies only used standardized measures to assess outcomes, or had collected follow-up data after ≥ 6 months. The results of all these trials were examined and discussed.Conclusion:Universal school-based RCTs to enhance emotional and social skills showed controversial findings, due to some methodological issues mainly. Nevertheless they show promising outcomes that are relatively far-reaching for children and youth wellbeing and therefore are important in the real world.

Abstract:Teacher wellbeing and performance is affected by their ability to cope with the demands of the profession. This pilot nonrandomized, waitlist-controlled study investigated the impact of a mindfulness intervention (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) on teachers' wellbeing, self-regulation ability and classroom performance applying a mixed-method design. The sample was comprised of 32 German school teachers (93% female) which were distributed to a control and intervention group. Compared to the control condition, the intervention showed medium to high effect sizes on most outcome variables at post-test and results were sustained at follow-up. Mediation analyses showed that changes in mindfulness at post-test mediated changes in outcome variables at follow-up. Unexpectedly, the intervention seemed to negatively affect teacher engagement. Qualitative interviews highlighted the way mindfulness may influence teacher engagement and improve performance. Limitations of this study and future directions of research are discussed.

No abstract

Objective: This study aimed to investigate individual and work-related resources (decision latitude, self-efficacy and work-related sense of coherence) and their relationship to health and work outcomes (general health, cognitive and emotional irritation, and work satisfaction) among German school principals. Method: In 2016, all teachers and principals in Lower Saxony, Germany, were invited to participate in an online-based cross-sectional study. Data from a sub-set of 1,026 school principals and members of the school leadership team (i.e. vice principals) were analysed using univariate and bivariate analysis and stepwise linear regression. Results: Findings revealed fairly high levels of self-efficacy and decision latitude and low levels of sense of coherence for administrative tasks. With regards to health, more than one quarter of respondents reported a poor general health status, and more than one third reported being dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their work. Primary school principals were more often affected by low levels of resources as well as lower health status and work satisfaction. Based on a series of regression analyses, decision latitude and self-efficacy proved to be the strongest predictors of all health and work outcomes. Conclusion: Given that school leaders are of critical importance for their entire school, this professional group should be placed more firmly in the focus of school health education and promotion. There is a particular need for health promotion measures for primary school principals, who have the least resources and the lowest health status.

The Wellbeing Game uses game design elements to promote wellbeing. Players document their daily activities in the game and categorize them to one or more of five wellbeing-related factors. The users join teams and can create team events to work together and improve their wellbeing status. The present study aims to review the application and the theoretical base of ‘The Wellbeing Game’, to adapt it to the German context, and to evaluate its health effects in different settings. Additional aims are to analyze the current state of research regarding the links between health, wellbeing, and gamification and to identify crucial game design elements that have to be implemented in the application in order to address the needs of competence, autonomy, and social relatedness according to the self-determination theory.