Secondary school Year Advisors’ perspectives on their role, responsibilities and training needs for student mental health: Insights from a co-design workshop

O’Dea, Bridianne; Anderson, Melissa S.; Subotic-Kerry, Mirjana; Parker, Belinda

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-294624/v1

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Secondary schools can enable the early identification of mental illness, [6][7][8][9] as many Australian teachers are the first to identify emotional problems in students and initiate help-seeking [5]. However, many teachers report a lack of skills and confidence in recognizing and responding to students' mental health needs [10,11] and few have received specialized training in this domain [8,12]. Many teachers have reported that additional management of student well-being has led to greater workload and stress [8,13,14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Examining the Preliminary Effectiveness and Acceptability of a Web-Based Training Program for Australian Secondary School Teachers: Pilot Study of the BEAM (Building Educators’ Skills in Adolescent Mental Health) Program

Parker¹,

Anderson²,

Batterham³

et al. 2021

JMIR Ment Health

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Background Secondary schools are increasingly supporting adolescents’ mental health and well-being, yet many teachers report that they lack the skills and confidence to do so. Building Educators’ skills in Adolescent Mental Health (BEAM) is a web-based training program developed to improve secondary school teachers’ knowledge and confidence in caring for students’ mental health. Objective This pilot study examined the preliminary effectiveness and acceptability of the BEAM program for improving mental health knowledge, attitudes, confidence, helping behaviors, and psychological distress among secondary school teachers. Methods A single-arm pilot trial was conducted from July to December 2019 among secondary school teachers located in New South Wales, Australia, who were employed in leadership positions responsible for managing student well-being (ie, Year Advisors). Participants had access to the BEAM program for 6 weeks. Self-report surveys, delivered at baseline, postintervention (6-weeks post baseline) and 3-month follow-up (19 weeks post baseline) were used to measure changes in training outcomes. Acceptability was assessed by program use, barriers, satisfaction, and participants’ perceptions of program effectiveness. Results A total of 70 secondary school teachers took part (mean age 36.5 years, SD 9.41 years, range 24-60 years). Significant improvements in confidence were reported at postintervention and 3-month follow-up. Significant improvements in helping behaviors were reported at 3-month follow-up only. There was also a significant reduction in psychological distress at postintervention. Participants agreed that the program content was easy to understand and relevant, but program completion was challenged by lack of time, competing priorities, and forgetfulness. Conclusions Findings indicated that a web-based training program may be beneficial for improving secondary school teachers’ abilities to care for students’ mental health; however, program modifications are required to increase training completions. Trial Registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) ACTRN12619000821190, Universal Trial Number U1111-1232-7680; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=377529

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…BEAM was developed in partnership with a lived experience advisory group of 12 teachers [ 12 ], and the delivery format was adapted from the evidence-based manager-training program HeadCoach [ 23 , 26 ]. HeadCoach is designed to help managers to better understand and support the mental health needs of their staff [ 23 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Preliminary Effectiveness and Acceptability of a Web-Based Training Program for Australian Secondary School Teachers: Pilot Study of the BEAM (Building Educators’ Skills in Adolescent Mental Health) Program

Parker¹,

Anderson²,

Batterham³

et al. 2021

JMIR Ment Health

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“…Approximately 70-80% of children who utilise mental health programs do so at school (Nadeem et al, 2018). Furthermore, schools in developed countries often have existing policies that align with mental health prevention (O'Dea et al, 2021). Programs that integrate well with existing policies are more likely to be sustainable (Herlitz et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Enhancing the Implementation of Universal Mental Health Prevention Programs in Schools: A Systematic Review

et al. 2022

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A number of school-based mental health prevention programs have been found to be effective in research trials, but little is known about how to support implementation in real-life settings. To address this translational problem, this systematic review aims to identify effective strategies for enhancing the implementation of mental health prevention programs for children in schools. Four electronic databases were searched for empirical, peer-reviewed articles in English from January 2000 to October 2021 reporting the effects of implementation strategies for school-based universal mental health programs. Twenty-one articles were included in the narrative synthesis and assessed for quality using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Twenty-two strategies were found to be effective at improving program fidelity or adoption. The strategies with the strongest positive evidence base were those that involved monitoring and provision of feedback, engaging principals as program leaders, improving teachers’ buy-in and organising school personnel implementation meetings. We recommend school-based practitioners trial strategies with positive findings from this review as part of their continuous quality improvement. This review highlights the pressing need for large-scale, randomised controlled trials to develop and trial more robust strategies to enhance adoption, as the five implementation studies found to measure adoption used qualitative methods limited by small samples sizes and case study designs.

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A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial on the Effectiveness of the Building Educators’ Skills in Adolescent Mental Health (BEAM) Program for Improving Secondary School Educators’ Confidence, Behavior, Knowledge, and Attitudes Toward Student Mental Health

O’Dea,

Parker,

Batterham

et al. 2023

Journal of Teacher Education

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Secondary school educators are well placed to recognize and respond to mental illness in adolescents; however, many report low confidence and skills in doing so. A confirmatory cluster randomized controlled trial involving 295 educators (Mean age: 40.10 years, SD: 10.47; 76.6% female, 2.7% Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander) from 73 Australian secondary schools (22 in rural-regional locations) evaluated the effectiveness of a new professional development training program that aimed to improve secondary school educators’ confidence, behavior, knowledge, and attitudes toward student mental health. Relative to the control, training participants reported significantly greater levels of confidence in recognizing and responding to student mental health issues, perceived mental health knowledge and mental health awareness, and mental health literacy, at post-intervention (10-weeks post-baseline; d = 0.26–0.35) and at 3-month follow-up ( d = −0.21 to 0.41). Findings indicate that the Building Educators’ skills in Adolescent Mental health (BEAM) program improves important training outcomes for educators in the domain of student mental health.

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Secondary school Year Advisors’ perspectives on their role, responsibilities and training needs for student mental health: Insights from a co-design workshop

Cited by 4 publications

References 26 publications

Examining the Preliminary Effectiveness and Acceptability of a Web-Based Training Program for Australian Secondary School Teachers: Pilot Study of the BEAM (Building Educators’ Skills in Adolescent Mental Health) Program

Examining the Preliminary Effectiveness and Acceptability of a Web-Based Training Program for Australian Secondary School Teachers: Pilot Study of the BEAM (Building Educators’ Skills in Adolescent Mental Health) Program

Strategies for Enhancing the Implementation of Universal Mental Health Prevention Programs in Schools: A Systematic Review

A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial on the Effectiveness of the Building Educators’ Skills in Adolescent Mental Health (BEAM) Program for Improving Secondary School Educators’ Confidence, Behavior, Knowledge, and Attitudes Toward Student Mental Health

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