The effectiveness of a school-based, universal mental health programme in six European countries

Abstract

As children and young people today face ever increasing social, emotional and mental health challenges, schools, as one of the primary systems in children’s lives, are called to broaden their agenda and help to address these challenges. This paper discusses the evaluation of a school-based, universal mental health promotion programme developed recently for the European context. The programme provides a universal curriculum from early years to high school, aiming to promote social and emotional learning and resilience and prevent social, emotional, and behavioural problems in children and adolescents. A total of 7,789 students (and their teachers and parents) from kindergarten to high school across 6 countries in Europe were recruited from 434 classrooms in 124 schools, making use of cluster sampling. A quasi-experimental longitudinal design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme on students’ outcomes by comparing the groups’ outcomes within times (pre-test vs. post-test) and between groups (experimental vs. control group). A total of 779 classroom teachers completed pre-and-post scales measuring students’ social and emotional learning, mental health and academic achievement. Results indicate that the experimental group had significantly larger increase in social and emotional competence and prosocial behaviour, and a decrease in mental health issues (externalising and internalising problems). No significant impact was found for academic outcomes. The findings are discussed in view of the limitations of the study and areas for further research.

Adolescent social emotional skills, resilience and behavioral problems during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study in three European countries

“…The “Promoting mental health at schools” (PROMEHS) program, including a ready-to-use activity plans for children and adolescents, fostering their social emotional learning and resilience, and mitigating development of behavioral problems, was designed to be provided in existing contexts without a pandemic. However, it proved to be a protective factor for both students and their teachers during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic ( 78 , 79 ), thus contributing to the protection of mental health during this extreme situation.…”

Multi-informant validity evidence for the SSIS SEL Brief Scales across six European countries

“…The purpose of the study was to address this need for high-quality SEL assessments by evaluating evidence concerning the validity of students’ scores on the SSIS SEL Brief Scales (SSIS SEL b ; Elliott et al, 2020 ) as rated by parents, teachers, and students from six European countries. These students had participated in a multi-country, school-based mental health project (titled PROMEHS) where SEL competency was a key outcome variable ( Cefai et al, in press ). Specifically, we evaluated the concurrent and predictive validity of scores from the SSIS SEL b Scales ( Elliott et al, 2020 ) by correlating them with scores from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997 ), a measure of mental health, and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC; Connor and Davidson, 2003 ), an adolescent self-report measure of resilience.…”

Does Online Implementation Make a Difference in the Effects of a Mental Health Curriculum at Schools?

“…After the first part of the training, teachers had to implement in class a minimum of twelve activities of the curriculum (four of each theme that comprises PROMEHS: Promoting Social and Emotional Learning; Promoting Resilience; and Preventing Social, Emotional and Behavioral Problems). For more information about the PROMEHS project and methodology procedures, see Cefai and colleagues’ study [ 46 ].…”